


Not Dark Enough for the DC Universe

by zaphodsgirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Case Fic, Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2020 (Supernatural), Friends to Lovers, M/M, Misunderstandings, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:35:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaphodsgirl/pseuds/zaphodsgirl
Summary: By day, Dean Winchester seems just like an average guy cliche: he works with cars, wears flannel shirts, and lives alone in a barely furnished apartment. Only the people close to him know that his life is just a mask to hide the fact that he wears aliteralmask every night, that of the superpowered crimefighter Daredemon.This life isn't all it’s cracked up to be, especially when you can't tell your crush why you bailed on your date, and youmightalso be harboring an inconvenient attraction to another super you can't reveal your identity to.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 63
Kudos: 217
Collections: Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hard to believe this is my third round in the DCRB! Much love to the new mods for this round and the incredible job they've done. Thank you for all your efforts Aceriee, Diamond, and Superhoney (who gets an extra hug for beta reading)!
> 
> A special thank you to my artist, Jaeh, for creating such a cool piece with an inspiring prompt that let me create such a fun story. On top of that, she did so many pieces of incredible art and I am _blown away_. I hope she's as pleased with the end result as I am! Art is embedded throughout the fic, but be sure to go [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23311180) to shower it with love directly! You can also find the art on [Tumblr](https://ineffablynoice.tumblr.com/post/613569038014169088/dcrb-2020-pieces-3-cas-and-dean-as-superheroes)!  
> 
> 
> Please note that if you are reading this in dark mode, you will not be able to see the scene dividers.
> 
> The title is inspired by something Deadpool says to Cable in the second movie: "You're so dark. Are you sure you're not from the DC universe?"

There's a nagging sound that enters into his consciousness slowly, increasing in volume as he becomes more and more aware. It's a high-pitched buzzing, and he fumbles one arm out from beneath the blankets to reach over and smack his hand on the nightstand several times, searching to no avail for what he now understands is the alarm clock.

"What the hell?" He finally sits up, realizing that the sound is coming from a different direction, and sighs when he sees that the alarm is on the dresser on the opposite side of the room. He forces his legs out of the bed and drags his aching body across the room, pressing the button firmly, shoulders sagging in relief when the buzzer stops.

"Too crafty for your own fucking good, Winchester. Might as well make coffee and shower before work, since you're upright." He shuffles into the kitchen to get the brew started, then yawns as he heads to the bathroom, idly scratching at his stomach until he winces a little. 

He stands in front of the mirror as he pulls the threadbare t-shirt over his head and drops it onto the tile, frowning at the blooming purple hematoma all along his ribs. He lifts up his left arm and turns, studying the way the bruise wraps around his rib cage, then checks himself over quickly for any other injuries.

"Knew that was gonna leave a mark," he mutters under his breath as he starts the water. He'd subdued one perp only to turn and have the other one slam a chair into his torso like they were in some kind of wrestling cage match, and he'd just leveled an irritated look at the man before knocking him out with a single punch. The guy had been huge, with a lot of weight to put behind that chair, but even so he was just a regular human. Thankfully Dean is not, or he'd have several broken ribs today instead of a lovely souvenir that aches when he raises his arms to wash his hair. Work is definitely going to be uncomfortable today.

He manages to drink a cup of coffee while towel drying his hair with one hand, ignoring the beeping of his phone as he gets several texts, only bothering to look at them after he's trotted down the stairs of his apartment building and gotten into his car. Sam, deciding to panic now that it's almost ten a.m. and Dean hasn't checked in yet. He thinks about letting him sweat for a few minutes while he drives to work, but takes pity after he gets the engine started.

_> On my way to work at the moment, catch you up on my break_

Sam sends a thumbs up emoji, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"Seven years of college, six years of practicing law...have a little dignity, Sam, Christ." He pockets the phone before putting the car into drive, squinting into the late morning sunlight as he heads to the garage.

The day is uneventful, as always, and though Dean tries not to wince every time he reaches for something he's pretty sure Bobby notices. After they've done two oil changes and a tire rotation, Bobby wordlessly passes him two pain killers and a can of soda, and Dean takes them without complaint.

"Fall off a building?" 

"Hit by a chair."

"A chair." Bobby sounds unimpressed.

"Yeah, a _metal_ chair."

"Were you in the basement of the local church during an AA meeting?"

"Don’t be dumb, old man." He takes another long swallow from the soda can, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "It was a break-in at the rec center."

Bobby just looks at him sideways, and Dean holds his hands out helplessly. "What? A crime is a crime, and it was a slow night. Not sure what they were looking for in there, but I got them down and left them for the cops to deal with."

" _After_ you let one of them hit you with a chair. You shouldn't get lazy and let your guard down, even with the simple shit, ya idjit."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean shoves him lightly with his shoulder. "I thought it would be a cakewalk, and I left myself unguarded. I'll do better."

"If you had a partner to watch your back I wouldn't have to worry so much."

"Not this again, come on, Bobby. This is Sioux Falls, not Gotham City. There aren't even enough super humans in a hundred mile radius for me to form some kind of farm team Justice League, much less team up with a partner. It's not like there are super-villains to deal with, just run of the mill petty criminals and the occasional kitten in a tree. It’s not the type of activity that draws the superhero crowd." He crushes the soda can in his fist, tossing it into a nearby trash can and pushing himself off the body of the vehicle they'd been leaning on. "Besides, I've been doing this by myself for so long that I don't know if I'd be able to adapt to working with another person, you know?"

Bobby lets out a sigh that speaks volumes, specifically a three-volume set called _How Disappointed I Am About How John Winchester Raised His Sons,_ probably in a leather bound, signed edition. Dean tenses automatically, a learned response that he's prone to whenever he thinks someone is disappointed in him. It's the type of conditioning he can never seem to shake, no matter how much he tells himself the reaction is unwarranted. Bobby has never treated Dean as a failure, but something in his blood can't help but expect it. Whatever might have come out of Bobby's mouth next is left unsaid, though, because a different voice echoes through the garage as a slight figure enters through the shop door. 

"What's up, bitches?" Charlie saunters over to where they're standing, arms full of Chinese takeout and face plastered with an effervescent grin. "I've got dumplings and Kung Pao chicken, who's hungry?"

"Considering what happened last night I really hope that's not all you brought," Bobby says, taking one of the bags from her and heading towards the breakroom in the back of the shop.

"Wait, what happened last night?" she asks Dean as he takes the other bag out of her hands before they trail after Bobby. "I have the prototype for your new gear out in the trunk of my car, but I've only got enough hands to carry food."

"Food first." 

"Not gonna argue, but still waiting for an explanation."

"Our favorite neighborhood do-gooder got his ass kicked by a metal chair."

"I did not get my ass kicked!"

"Someone got the drop on you with a chair? Were you at Monday Night Raw?"

"Yesterday was a Wednesday, Charlie."

"This wouldn't happen if you had a partner, you know."

"Did you two plan this? Is this an intervention?"

"Maybe the fact that all the smart people around you think the same thing is an indication that it's a valid opinion and you should consider it."

"Yes, because the midwest is teeming with choices for a crime-fighting partner. Where am I supposed to look? Superhero Tinder?"

"Knowing you it would be Superhero Grindr."

"Bobby, how do you even know about Grindr?"

"Please, as if there's anything Bobby doesn't know about.” Charlie pauses, getting that glint in her eye that Dean’s so familiar with. “It's not a bad idea, actually. Maybe I could come up with an app for that. Something that would help you connect with others like you.”

“Might also help with your love life."

"Not this again, the two of you are worse than Sam."

"Yes, we all want you to have someone who takes care of you as much as you take care of everyone else, we are terrible people and should be ashamed."

Dean groans as he grabs a set of chopsticks and a container of Kung Pao chicken. "Look, it's not that I don't want to find someone, okay? It's just that I can't exactly be truthful with someone from the jump no matter how much I'm interested in them, not if I want to keep my identity a secret, and it's impossible to have any kind of relationship with someone when you have to lie to them all the time." 

Charlie pats his hand in sympathy. "Maybe if you just tried to keep it really casual in the beginning, ease into it?" 

"Don't you think I've tried that? I always end up looking like an inconsiderate jackass. It's not like I can say 'sorry I didn't respond to your text for two days, but I was trapped in an abandoned bank vault by some two-bit criminal with high aspirations.’"

"The Lisa break up still stings, huh? Thought you were over her. What was that, three years ago?" Charlie nods in the affirmative.

"There wasn't enough there for me to actually get _over_ , Bobby, that's what I'm saying."

"You could at least go on dates, son, get your ya-yas out every so often."

"This is not happening. It's like every nightmare I had in puberty about my dad having the sex talk with me."

"When was the last time you were even on a date?"

"I don't know, like three months ago?"

"Oh, I know this! It was that blind date Sam tricked him into!"

"Yeah, and look how that turned out."

"I thought you had fun?"

"Let's see, did I have fun with my blind date who was gorgeous, funny, engaging, smart, and sexy as hell? Yes, yes I did. Especially since I’d been crushing on the same person for almost a year, and everything was going really great. Tons of fun! Right up until there was an explosion across the street and I had to duck out of the bathroom window in the middle of our date like an asshole, lest innocent people burn to death.”

Charlie and Bobby have the good grace to look chagrined, but Dean’s on a roll now.

“How do I even apologize for that? There's no text you can send that will explain why you deserve a second chance, which will certainly require a third, etc etc etc, because you always have to let them down for some reason, and then you’ll have to lie. Thus proving the point I've been making all this time!"

"But,” Charlie starts, and when Dean rolls his eyes she barrels forward in a rush. “If I make an app we can kill two birds with one stone! You can hook up with someone who's actually in the life, and they'll understand special circumstances like that, even that you have to keep your true identity a secret. I can make it nationwide, maybe you could meet someone in one of the big cities who's looking to settle down somewhere quiet?"

"The city superheroes are nothing but clout chasers, and I’m not interested in their kind. Can we just finish lunch so I can look at the under armor prototype?"

Bobby makes a non-committal noise but goes back to eating, and Charlie lets out a long-suffering sigh before she follows suit. They mean well, and he knows it, but it's a circular argument at this point. Sure, there would be more opportunity for him somewhere else, but his whole life is here. This is the place he cares about, the place where he wants to make a difference, and if that means he's going to die alone, well...he better start getting used to the concept. He still cringes every time he wonders what his last date must think of him, because that was one he never wanted to hurt, much less lose.

As for people who are 'in the life,’ well, it’s possible that there’s a candidate for that, though there's no way in hell he's letting anyone else in on that information. Charlie and Sam would both needle him about it endlessly, well-meaning meddlers that they are, and he just wants to keep it to himself for a while. Enjoy the limbo that may or may not be mutual attraction until the inevitable happens.

"The best part about this material is that it's breathable as well as durable."

Lunch is finished, and Bobby has gone back to doing the normal work of the garage. Dean had pulled Charlie's car into the bay with the grease pit, then helped her remove everything from the trunk and carry it down below, where she hit a hidden switch that opened a portion of the wall. A short corridor then led to the big secret beneath Singer's Auto, a large underground room where Dean keeps all the costumes and equipment that Charlie and Ash develop for him as part of an operation bankrolled by his brother. 

Charlie always says it’s the perfect cover to call it the Cave, since it sounds like Dean just has a basement room where he plays video games and watches action movies, which is largely correct. It _is_ technically a basement, and he and Charlie both play games down there. (It's just that most of the movies he watches there are chick flicks, but that’s nobody’s business.)

Dean manipulates the body armor with his hands, marveling at the way it moves. "How much is it gonna cost, though?" No matter what Sam says, Dean always feels a twinge of guilt about the support, even though Sam is always trying to be far more generous than he already is. 

"It will actually cost less to make this than the other stuff we’ve been working with, and it’s far superior. I mean, just look at the flexibility.”

He whistles lowly. "Damn. Ash really outdid himself with this one."

"He's a mad genius. I'm glad he's on our side, can you imagine if he chose to use his powers for evil?"

"I shudder to think. Turn around while I take my shirt off and try this on."

"Newsflash, your nude torso does nothing for me."

"Yes, but I'm saving myself for marriage, and no other eyes should gaze upon me."

"How is someone with the moniker Daredemon such a prude?" Charlie asks, but dutifully turns around to start tapping something into the computer terminal against the wall. "Things really are quiet around here lately, even for South Dakota. It makes me nervous, actually...holy shit Dean, Bobby wasn’t kidding, since when do you let your guard down so much?" 

"I told you to turn around!"

"Of course you did, because you don't want a goddamn lecture. Let me take a look at it."

"Charlie, it's really fine, I promise, nothing's actually broken." He raises an arm above his head anyway, letting her poke at his ribs to her satisfaction, managing to maintain his dignity and not squeak while she does it.

"Maybe we can ask your brother for an x-ray machine to keep down here," she says as she pulls back, crossing her arms and frowning at him. "We're probably going to need it in your old age."

"Speaking of Sam, I promised to call him on my break, and no you are absolutely not allowed to ask him for an x-ray machine."

"Fine, let's get the under armor on you first so we can gauge how it fits and give Sam an assessment."

"Thanks, Charlie." 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"I promise it was a momentary lapse, come on. You've seen me in much worse shape."

"Yeah, after you've been in a fist fight with like six other guys possessing a variety of melee weapons."

"Only because a chair covers more surface area than a lead pipe."

She shakes her head as she helps him into the under armor, which is fashioned much like a kevlar vest, though far less bulky. The material feels like a rubberized silicone, and he expects to start sweating as soon as he tightens it. 

"Huh," he says, bending to touch his toes, then carefully turning himself right to left, doing a few practice moves. "This is way more breathable than I thought it would be. How protective is it though? It doesn't seem very durable."

"Let me hit you with the stool and we'll see."

"Ha ha, very funny." He catches the glint in her eye and backs away with his hands up. "Don't even think about it."

"Fine. Take it off and we'll stab it with some pointy things to reassure you."

"Really? What about bullets, other projectiles?"

"Any kind of shrapnel. The material is impervious to damage, and will actually absorb the shock of impact."

"Oh shit, will it redirect it back at the enemy?"

"According to Ash that part of the Black Panther science is utter horseshit, but he's still grateful you made him watch the movie because he was inspired. He's tempted to name this material Panthera, though I suspect it's more of a music reference."

"I can get behind it either way. I'm not even sweating, this is amazing."

"The vest is it for now, but he's working to mold some other pieces that you can wear beneath your usual get up, almost like football pads, but without any of the bulk. You'll be able to move just as well as you usually do, like a gazelle with two left feet."

"Hey!"

She laughs, turning her back on him to call Sam and bring him up on the video monitor while Dean puts a shirt on over the vest. Sam is worse than a mother hen, and he's had enough ribbing for today, ha ha. 

"What's the word, Sam?" he asks when his brother answers the call, face looming large on the big screen TV that Charlie has turned into a computer monitor.

"Hey guys, anything of note happen last night?" Sam is shuffling papers at his desk, obviously too distracted to even make eye contact, so he misses the smug look Charlie gives Dean. 

"Just a couple of idiots pulling doing a good old fashioned B&E at the rec center of all places."

"The rec center?" Sam finally gives them his full attention, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "What the hell is worth stealing at the rec center?"

"No idea, I didn't take time to inquire. What do those giant wrestling mats go for?" 

"Man, you weren't kidding when you said things were really slow." Sam sits back in his chair, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "Maybe all the smarter criminals in the area have decided it's not worth the trouble to run into you and are moving to a different feeding ground?"

"Could be," Charlie muses. "You've been visibly active in this area for years now and word gets around."

"You think all the bad guys are starting to avoid doing crime within a hundred mile radius because they fear me?" He stops pacing behind Charlie, arms crossed and face pensive before he nods to himself with a grin. "Actually, yeah, that makes sense. Pissing their pants at the idea that Daredemon is coming for them."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Charlie, I still can't believe you let him go with that."

"I think it's hilarious given that the person bankrolling this whole operation is a lawyer, even though you're no Matt Murdoch."

"Too late now, Sammy. The name Daredemon strikes fear into the hearts of evil men...within the greater Sioux Falls region, anyway."

"I did this to myself," Sam mutters under his breath. "I should have just let you keep being my own personal bodyguard like Dad wanted you to be and paid you a salary."

"I can always go back to doing that. Standing in the hall outside your office, giving menacing looks to everyone who passes by..."

" _Flirting_ with everyone who passes by, ensuring that I get taken out by a well-trained assassin with an eyelid flutter deadly enough to get past you."

"You wound me, Sammy."

"Alright, alright, break it up, Jesus. One of these days I'm going to put you both in the sparring ring with those giant, cartoon boxing gloves and just let you whale on each other for my entertainment, but not today. If there's nothing else for you to fight about I'd like to go over something."

Sam looks at her sheepishly despite his large frame and expensive suit. "Sorry, Charlie."

"Okay, then." She rolls up her sleeves before typing into the keyboard, and a map comes up on the screen to her right. "You seeing this, Sam?"

"Sure am. What are all these markings?"

"Well, something has been bugging me lately, so I started looking at the statistical crime data that I've been collecting over the years."

"Nerd."

"Dork." She swats at him without even taking her eyes off the screen, so he leans in to get a better look. "What you're seeing here is a crime map that covers the first four years of the last five that Dean's been a visible entity here, with pins color coded by type of crime. You've got your vandalism, your fraud, your DUIs, all basic stuff. Most of those numbers are pretty steady over the last five years, because clearly Dean can't be everywhere at once. What I want to draw your attention to is something in particular." She clicks a button and a bunch of the colored pins disappear from the map, leaving only a handful, colored red. "Now, during that four year period, there were nine cases of arson in the greater Sioux Falls area, but in the last year alone..." She clicks again, and now the map is littered with red pins. "We've had at least twelve."

"What the hell," Dean says, leaning closer. "Shit. I never realized but yeah, it does seem like we've been seeing a lot of fires in the past year. I didn't really think about it because most of them were in..."

"Abandoned buildings, yes, up until..."

"The explosion in the apartment building downtown, across from Benny's Bar and Grill, the one they thought was a gas leak at first."

"Shit," Sam says, sitting heavily back in his chair. "What do you think it means?"

"Well, it could just be that there's a firebug who either moved into the area from somewhere else, or is just starting to get a taste for it and trying out new things."

"But you don't think so."

Charlie bites her lip, then shakes her head. "Something about it feels very deliberate, but controlled. Since the apartments there have been two more cases of arson in populated buildings, but in all of them Dean was able to react before anyone could get hurt. It's just a gut feeling, I can't really explain it, but -- it's almost like these fires, they're sending a message. Like a series of signal flares, trying to draw someone's attention."

"You mean Dean's attention. There's no other supers working in this city, hell, you'd have to go all the way to Chicago to find anyone at Dean's level."

"Well, that's not exactly..."

"Fair, Sammy, that's not fair, there's that chick in Minneapolis who can create earthquakes, what's her name, uh..."

"Dean, I think Sam should..."

" _Not_ start worrying, at least not until we can get some concrete evidence that this is something to be worried about. Come on, Sammy, you know you don't want to blow your load early, Eileen has enough to complain about."

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a long, slow exhale before running his fingers through his hair. Dean takes the opportunity to elbow Charlie when Sam closes his eyes, and she mouths "Ow!" at him with a scowl before turning her attention back to Sam, who is glaring at Dean but looks resigned anyway.

"Alright, but let's start doing a nightly sweep for any area fires, see if we can start to discern any kind of true pattern. Trap or not, whoever this is needs to be stopped before anyone gets really hurt. You guys do what you need to and call me tomorrow if there's anything I need to know; otherwise I'll see you both tomorrow night."

He punches a key on his laptop and the image goes dark on their side. 

“He didn’t even ask about the under armor.”

Charlie turns her chair to look at Dean. 

"So," she says, and Dean can feel sweat appear on the back of his neck, though surprisingly he's still not sweating under the armor. "Why don't you want Sam to know about the thing you've been keeping a secret even from me?"

"What do you..."

"Dean."

He sighs. "How did you know?"

She gives him an incredulous look. "Have you met me?"

_Six months ago_

It’s like a tickle on the back of his neck, the distinct feeling you get when you're being watched. Normal people in a situation like that will turn and find someone staring at them hard from the other side of a room, but such things are usually far simpler for Dean, who can focus his enhanced senses enough to hear the flutter of a butterfly's wing a thousand yards away. 

He’s currently perched atop the corner of a tall building downtown, assessing the streets below and listening for the sound of anything amiss. It seems impossible that anyone can see him, lurking in the shadowed corner of the roof seven stories above street level and wearing black from head to toe, hood pulled up over his head. He freezes, reaching out with his senses to see if he can pinpoint the direction of the sensation. It’s impossible for anyone to sneak up on him even on the ground, but on this rooftop even more so, since the stairs are out on three different floors -- unless you’re superhuman, which Dean is, thanks to his mother's bloodline and a genetic mutation even rarer than the one that gave him green eyes. 

He looks over his shoulder, assessing the area behind him and finding it as empty as expected, then peering into the distance as far as he can see. There’s nothing within his range of sight, and there aren’t any other buildings this high within at least a mile radius, so it’s impossible that someone is hiding on a nearby rooftop. The feeling persists for a few more minutes before it suddenly disappears, as if whoever it was realized that he was onto them, the way you'd catch someone's eye across a crowded bar only to have them pull their glance away once you noticed.

It happens more and more over the next few weeks, in different spots all over the city. He feels the hair on the back of his neck rise ever so slightly, and after a couple of minutes he can usually pinpoint where it’s coming from. Yet every time he turns in that direction, the sensation abruptly ceases like a scolded child pulling their hand out of the cookie jar. 

"Are you flirting with me?" he mutters under his breath after the fourth time. _It might be another gifted human_ , he reasons, _one who’s keeping it to themselves_. They’re greater in number than people realize, living under the radar with some kind of enhancement that usually won’t do much more than complicate their daily life. Sam even has a touch of latent psychic ability, but it’s a secret that very few people know, and something Sam would rather forget about altogether.

 _If they find me so fascinating, maybe they should try and make contact_ , he thinks, but that seems highly unlikely. _How do superheroes even meet each other, anyway?_

A few weeks later, he gets an answer.

He’s on another rooftop downtown, only four stories high this time, when he catches the jarring crash of breaking glass in the distance, followed by the whooping sound of celebration. He pinpoints the location in the space of a blink, then takes a series of calculated jumps to reach street level -- wishing, not for the first time, that he could climb walls or shoot webs, because everybody knows the patented superhero landing is murder on the knees. He runs toward the commotion as swiftly as a jungle cat, encountering no one else as he dashes through side streets in the direction of the sound. Not surprising, as it’s just after two a.m. and a weekday to boot. Don’t these assholes have to work in the morning like normal people?

He finally sees them as he turns a street corner, about three blocks further down and moving away from where he comes out. There are at least six that he can see right off, angry drunks who'd worked themselves up into a frenzy of stupidity, vandalizing shops and cars, leaving the ruins in their wake with an assortment of impromptu weapons they'd found along the way.

_Looks like I’ll be getting a workout tonight._

Suddenly that sensation of being watched comes over him again, so familiar by now, like receiving a letter in a handwriting you recognize. Dean grins, feeling playful. He _could_ just sneak up behind these guys one at a time, knocking them out and littering the street for the cops to find, but that won’t be much of a show for his admirer, will it? 

Instead, he ducks down another side street and around the next two blocks so he can cut the group off, announcing his arrival with a flying kick to the chest of a guy using a baseball bat to reconfigure the headlight of an Audi.

The man falls down with a startled _oomph_ as the wind is knocked out of him, blinking up at Dean in confusion as the rest of the group goes completely still. He stares them down, making eye contact with each one, and realizes that there are actually six more still standing. Well then. Lucky seven. 

He assesses them all in a split second, taking their various weapons into account: a wrench, a length of thick chain, a tire iron, a piece of pipe, and a couple of two-by-fours. Bat Man is still lying on the ground at his feet, currently not part of the equation.

"What's the matter, boys? Do you only know how to attack something that can’t fight back?"

None of them move for a moment, and he surveys them casually with a smug smile, waiting until...there. Back left. _The weakest link_. Fist clenching ever so imperceptibly on the pipe in his grip, desperate to be pushed into action, and Dean is only too happy to oblige.

"What about you, Super Mario? You think you got what it takes?" He holds his arms out wide, palms up in a gesture of supplication. "Or are you too scared to take on little old me?" 

Super Mario raises the pipe over his head with a roar, spurring his buddies out of their frozen tableau, and as they rush in Dean's direction he gets into his best fighting stance and mentally winks at his unseen admirer. _Hope you enjoy the show, friend._

Hand to hand combat is usually easy for someone able to subdue up to three opponents at once, so this kind of melee is a nice change of pace, a welcome chance for him to shake off the cobwebs and showboat a little bit. The level of difficulty is only increased because he knows he needs to disarm and subdue all these men without doing them permanent harm. They’re just a bunch of idiots on a bender, likely nine to fivers chafing at the yoke of the working man's life. Dean wears a pair of matching pistols in a holster at his lower back, but he won’t be using them tonight.

Chain guy approaches first, swinging the length of it around in a threatening circle that makes Dean duck back a little. "Whoa there, Gogo, somebody's gonna get hurt if you don't know how to use that thing." The Gogo wannabe lunges, and Dean takes the opportunity to snag the end of the chain on its downward arc, grateful for the padding in the fingerless gloves he wears because it only stings a bit. He yanks the chain so that the attacker's own momentum throws him off balance, then uses a well-placed elbow to knock him unconscious on his way down. He spins to take on the next one, but the guy has barely raised the wrench in the air before he gets a jab in the windpipe for his trouble, sending him to his knees with a choked sound as he struggles for breath. He notices that Bat Man has finally gotten to his feet, but when Dean glares at him he just raises his hands in the air and points to his buddy. 

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead and help his sorry ass, but stay out of my way unless you both want another taste." Dean's been clocking two of them moving around behind him as he speaks; apparently Super Mario and tire iron guy have decided to team up and beat him senseless with metal objects. He's covertly maneuvering into a better position to face off against them when he hears the strangest sound and is momentarily distracted. It's like...like the whip of a cape in an old movie, or the flap of a giant bird's wings, a sound that seems familiar but out of place in a way that's jarring. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a dark shape alight in front of the last two assailants, cutting off Dean's view, but not before he gets a look at their faces twisted into utter terror.

_So there you are, secret admirer. What the hell brings you to these parts?_

He catches the glint of something silver in the new arrivals hands.

"Don't kill them!" he yells, and too late remembers that he's got his own pair to contend with at the moment. He quickly raises an arm just in time to deflect the pipe from Super Mario, but he gets a tire iron to the ribs from Pit Crew guy as punishment for his distraction. 

It takes him several minutes longer to subdue them than it should, because he can't seem to give them his full attention. He can hear every sound of the newcomer's fight behind him with perfect clarity, and his mind is spinning. It's clear they're here to help him, have probably been planning to all this time, but he has no idea why. He knows there are other enhanced humans in the world who wear masks and fight crime; hell, his mother's clan had a proud tradition of it going back generations. They, like most others with the power to do a greater good, kept to the densely populated cities where the crime rates were high and the work plentiful despite their greater numbers. Now it seems there’s another masked crime fighter in the area, and listening to him take the board from one assailant and break it in half is doing things to Dean. 

However, his lack of attention to his own fight is giving his opponents a false sense of superiority. He manages to pull his mind back to the task at hand and give them both his singular focus, and it must show on his face because both of them pause mid-swing. 

"Uh," Pit Crew says, eyes sliding over to his companion as if to gauge whether or not he has also realized that they are Well and Truly Fucked, but clearly he does not. Dean sneers as he grabs the pipe on the downward swing, again following the momentum as he turns to deliver an elbow into the ribs, directing his glare to the other guy as Super Mario goes down with a grunt of pain and his pipe clatters against the sidewalk. Pit Crew takes several steps back but trips over his own feet, landing hard on his ass as he loses his grip on the tire iron, his feet scrabbling against the pavement as he crab walks backward. The sound of the adjacent scuffle comes back to his attention before it ceases entirely, and Dean looms over the final attacker, who holds up his hands in a placating gesture before losing control of his bladder to piss himself right there on the sidewalk before he passes out. 

"Aw, I didn't even get to use my catchphrase," Dean laments.

"You have a catchphrase?" 

He turns, taking a good look at his unexpected companion for the first time. He's also in an all black ensemble but it's much more fitted than Dean's. It doesn't look like any of it is padding, either, and if it's not those are his honest to god thighs and... _has my upper lip just now broken out in a sweat or was that there already?_ The man’s face is partially shadowed because he's backlit by the nearest streetlamp but Dean can tell he's also wearing a mask, though it actually covers the entire top half of his face, like a ski mask that doesn't go all the way down. 

"Well, to be honest I haven't actually settled on one yet, which is why it's important for me to try out new material in every fight. I just know I'm gonna hit on the right one eventually." He hears sirens come on in the distance, but they're still some distance away. 

"And how long have you been working on this project?" Dean wonders if his voice is like that because of the exertion from the fight, deep and gruff and just the kind of thing he'd like to wake up to every morning and holy shit, he is really glad he doesn't wear tights because it feels like there's not enough room in his pants all of a sudden.

"About five years." The stranger laughs, a husky sound that sends a ripple up his spine, and Dean takes a step closer. "Good job taking out Bob the Builder and Fix-It Felix, there. Are you the one who's been watching me these last couple of weeks?" 

"You knew I was watching?" Genuine surprise is in that voice, and Dean can't help but give a cocky smile. "I'm sorry, I just...I didn't expect to see someone like you around here."

"You mean someone like _you_." The guy looks startled, then nods. Dean holds his hands out to the sides as he takes a mock bow. "Serving the great city of Sioux Falls for over a decade." 

"A decade? I thought you said five years."

"No, five years is just how long I've been working on a catchphrase, ever since I went professional and started 'branding' myself." Did he really just use air quotes? Charlie is never going to stop teasing him for this, never; he can just picture her cracking up now. "You can call me Daredemon."

The guy stares at him for a good minute, and Dean wishes he could see his eyes better, because he's pretty sure he just narrowed them. "That's...not very original."

"Oh really, and what do you call yourself, Handsome?"

"What?" I'm..." Is this man actually flustered? Dean starts circling him slowly. Maybe he can get him to face the light enough to see if he's blushing. "You can call me Darkwing." 

"Oh ho ho, look who's not original now. I see, I see. So I'm a Marvel, and you're a DC. Interesting. Unless you were inspired by a duck, in which case we'd technically be on the same side, because of Disney...so which is it? Are you a Dick Grayson or a Drake Mallard wannabe?"

"What?" 

"Come on, man, Darkwing Duck? Saturday morning cartoons? Childhood? You had one of those, right?"

The man turns slightly, tilting his head at Dean as though he's studying an alien life form. "Are you always like this when you first meet somebody new?"

"Well, that depends."

"On?"

"On whether or not I'm planning to take them to bed later."

"I see. That's too bad." The sirens are finally close enough that the still-conscious assailants can hear them. They begin to stir, but Dean ignores them as Darkwing closes the distance between them, close enough that Dean can feel the heat coming off his body. He swallows. 

"Why's that?" 

"Well," the man whispers lowly, so that no one can hear him but Dean. "You obviously can't be trying to do that based on this conversation, and that's a real shame. I've never slept with another superhuman before." Now he leans closer, even though it's unnecessary, his warm breath tickling the shell of Dean's ear. "I wonder what it would be like, you know? To not have to hold back."

Dean takes a shuddering breath as their eyes lock, and even though Darkwing's are still in shadow he can feel himself drowning in them. He's about to do something really stupid when Bob the Builder groans loudly. 

"Please, please, I am begging you. I am in enough pain without having to watch the two of you eye fuck each other in front of us. I am begging for mercy, _begging_."

Dean turns to tell him to shut up, but the first police car careens around the corner with sirens blaring and lights flashing, and before he can react he hears that odd fluttering sound again. 

"Another time, then," Darkwing says huskily, and then he's propelling himself into the air with a pair of giant black wings that have appeared out of nowhere, leaving Dean to stare after him as he disappears into the night sky.

"Jesus Christ, that was fucking hot," he mutters before making himself scarce just as the police arrive on scene.

"I knew it," Charlie says, sitting back in satisfaction. "Well, I didn't know exactly what I knew, but I knew I knew something."

"For such a smart person, you sound incredibly dumb right now."

"Oh come on, Dean. I've been waiting for you to open up to me for ages about why patrolling downtown was suddenly your favorite activity, and making the crime map showed me that even though arson has gone up a great deal, there's been a gradual decrease in certain other types of crime. People often reconsider doing bad things when the likelihood they'll be caught increases, and those odds definitely go up when the amount of friendly neighborhood superheros suddenly doubles. I've been hearing rumors of someone else in the mix for a few months now, an entity that's definitely not you unless you sprouted wings and you're changing into skin tight neoprene when you leave. Although if _that's_ the case, thanks for doing it where I never have to see. You're the best of friends."

"Wait, did you just make me confirm something you had no proof of?"

"Duh. It's not like we have CCTV around here, I can't actually keep eyes on you all the time, I have settlements to check on in the Wasteland."

"I still can't believe you convinced Sam to fund this rig so you could secretly use it to play games."

"And I can't believe you didn't just tell me that I don't need to make the Superhero Grindr app because it will be much easier for me to make a tracker for you to surreptitiously attach to your new friend."

"No." He pushes himself off the edge of the desk where he'd been leaning while he talked. "I don't want that. It's a violation of trust."

"Come on, it's not like we're supervillains, we wouldn't use the information for evil! I can just find out who he is in real life so you can, I don't know, pretend to bump into him somewhere, talk him up."

"No." He rubs at his chin with one hand. "It's not that I don't want to know, it's just, I don’t want to jinx anything. I’ve already screwed up with one guy I really liked…”

“Oh, so you _do_ like him!”

“...and _maybe_ I should just keep this what it is. A professional relationship between two like minded people.”

"You realize he could be out there fighting on his own, right? There's no reason he has to keep tagging after you all the time. Maybe he likes you and he _wants_ to get to know you."

"Maybe just wants the thrill of exchanging witty banter while flirting with a stranger."

"You should ask him out next time, then you'll know for sure."

"Jesus, Charlie, come on. Where do two masked men even go on a date? It's not like we can go to a restaurant."

"So don't date, just jump his bones, you don't even have to get fully naked!"

"As kinky as it sounds I'm not keen to have sex with someone when I'm worrying all the time about my mask slipping off."

Charlie lets out a frustrated breath, blowing hair out of her eyes as she does, then crossing her arms with a pout. "This is frustrating."

"What do you think I've been telling you for months? My life is a _damned if you do, damned if you don't_ scenario playing out in real time. Can't date civilians because they can't know about my alter ego, can't date supes because they can't find out who I am in real life. The only thing Dad ever drilled into me that both you and Bobby ever agreed on was the need for secrecy."

"Ugh, please do not remind me that I ever agreed with John Winchester on anything." She sighs, then reaches out to take his hand, swinging their arms between them playfully. "I won't give up trying to think of a solution, okay? You're the best person I know, and you deserve to have someone in your life that can appreciate you."

"You appreciate me."

"I mean in a full-bodied, non-lesbian, sweaty, naked kind of way."

"Ew."

"Whatever. So. Taking the under armor on a test drive tonight?"

"Can we please call it something that doesn't remind me of long johns until Ash gives it a name?"

"Fine, do you wish to wear your 'gentle man shell' on patrol tonight?"

"You made it worse. How did you make it worse?"

"It's a gift."


	2. Chapter 2

**__**_Another slow night_ , Dean muses as he perches atop one of his favorite rooves downtown, four stories up. He mulls over what Charlie had told him about the fires, and the pattern of those increasing while other crime was going down. It's not like he's keeping close track of all the different altercations he ends up in, but he feels like he should have noticed and wonders why he didn't.

_You were distracted, that's why_. 

"That's no excuse," he mutters under his breath, then freezes as a familiar sensation comes over him. He turns his head slightly, just enough to talk over his shoulder, and waits a beat to make sure his voice is as calm as he doesn’t feel. "It's not like you to show up before any of the fighting has even started."

"I do love watching you work, that’s true," Darkwing says, his gravelly voice carrying from the shadows at the opposite side of the roof. "But I need to speak with you, and it's easier to do that when we're not throwing punches." 

"Fair enough." He clears his throat, suddenly nervous. "What, ah, did you want to talk about?"

Darkwing comes closer, standing just out of reach. It strikes Dean as odd, but he keeps his gaze out on the city, not wanting to spook him. _Is it me you don't trust, or yourself?_

"I may be moving on from here."

"What?" Any trace of stoicism falls from Dean's face as he turns. "Where? Why?"

"Are you going to ask 'who' next? I'm pretty sure that violates superhero etiquette."

"Sorry, sorry. You're right, it's none of my business." _I wish it were, though_. 

Darkwing says nothing for a few minutes, turning his gaze out to survey the sleepy city of Sioux Falls, and Dean studies his profile in the dark, wondering what he looks like without the cowl. Is he bald or his hair close-cropped? That would probably be easiest, with a getup like that. Is his physique part of his biology, or does he work out? Do the wings disappear, or do they just go invisible when they're not in use? If he reached out to touch, would he be able to feel them under his hand? Would they be leathery like a bat or feathered like a bird's wing? What would sex be like with someone who had wings? 

"Hello?" Darkwing is waving a hand in front of his face, and Dean shakes his head to clear it. "Did you zone out?"

"What? No, I just...was thinking about things I wanted to do tonight." _And tomorrow night, and the night after that. Repeatedly, and with vigor._

"I just wanted to let you know, so that you don't think the worst when you don't see me any longer." 

"Yes, because my mind would have definitely assumed that you'd been overpowered by the local minions of Bad Horse or some other super villain. Sioux Falls is rife with them." He expects Darkwing to laugh, but he just turns even more solemn, and Dean only sees the subtle clenching of his fists because he's gifted like that. 

"That's the kind of attitude that actually will get you killed, you know. Any place can be corrupted, or overrun by those with ill intent."

"Hey, I'm not arguing that fact. I know they strike where you least expect, it's just...no one would make this their base, man."

"If you think that, why are you here?"

"I grew up here," he says without thinking, realizing too late he shouldn't have and trying to deflect. "At least I didn't come here on purpose, like I'm trying to hide from something. Wait. Is that why you're leaving? You're on the run, and you think they've caught up?" Dean moves towards him, but Darkwing takes a few steps back. "Hey, look. Talk to me, maybe I can help." That chiselled jaw clenches as he turns away.

"It's not your responsibility."

"Actually, if you've brought bad news onto my turf I think you've made it my responsibility." The air between them shifts, and he can see the way all of Darkwing's muscles tighten, from the broad swath of his shoulders all the way to his glutes, and fuck this is not the time but he wishes he had a quarter so he could see if it would bounce off those because _damn_. He desperately wants Darkwing to stay, and now is not the time to dwell on all the reasons why -- especially not those two reasons. "Look, we've been fighting things together these last few months, and none of that was your responsibility, but you did it anyway. You could allow me to return the favor if you decide you'd rather make a stand." 

He waits for a moment, letting out a relieved breath when no wings appear and Darkwing slowly relaxes. He turns back ever so slightly in Dean’s direction, and his tone is lighter when he speaks again. "It could be dangerous."

"So? Danger's my middle name."

Darkwing faces him fully this time, head tilting to one side as he regards him. "That's a terrible middle name. Daredemon Danger? Did your parents hate you?"

Dean smiles despite himself. "Only my dad." 

"What..." He cuts off, turning to look out over the city, and before Dean can ask why he senses the reason all on his own. 

The acrid scent of smoke wafts into his nostrils, carried on the night air from several miles away. Not strong enough yet for normal human senses to detect, but both of them have at almost the same instant. 

"Northeast of here, less than five miles," Dean says, already making his way to his exit point from the roof. "The industrial park, more than likely. I'll meet you there in ten minutes."

"I can fly us in half the time."

"Nope," Dean says, letting his lips pop the last consonant. "I don't do flying."

"How can you be scared of heights? You're constantly hanging out on rooftops."

"I didn't say anything about heights, I said flying. The thing that can very easily turn into falling."

"You're afraid of falling?"

"Okay first of all, I'm not afraid of anything. And B, I don't put willingly myself into situations where I don't control the outcome." He vaults over the lip of the rooftop, landing on the building beside it, one story lower, calling out over his shoulder, "last one there buys drinks!" 

He runs across the rooftop and jumps from that onto a light pole, sliding down to street level like a fireman on call before taking off at a sprint. He sees a black, shadowed figure pass over his head in the even darker night sky, moving at a pace equal to Dean's own but without the disadvantage of navigating the city streets to reach their destination.

" _Last one there buys drinks_ , for fuck's sake, did I seriously just ask him out on a date as I was jumping off the roof?"

He mentally berates himself the entire time it takes for him to run to the source of the smoke, a warehouse in the industrial park just as he'd guessed. He takes a running leap onto the cab of a truck, hoisting himself up to the top of the trailer, which is conveniently backed up to a loading dock, then traversing the length of it to gain access to the roof of the warehouse with one last jump.

"Took you long enough." 

"It took me _seven_ goddamn minutes to run like, four miles, how long did it take you to arrive, six?"

"Not quite. Five fifty."

"Oh come _on_."

A soft, low chuckle rolls across the roof of the warehouse, and Dean shivers. He likes the way it sounds coming out of the dark, and he wouldn’t mind hearing more of it in a different location, like his bedroom.

_Focus, goddammit._

"As far as I can tell, whatever is on fire inside is localized," Darkwing says from where he's crouched on the other side of the roof, oblivious to the crisis happening inside Dean's head. "Could just be someone squatting inside for shelter, which would be nothing for us to worry about. We should probably find a way inside just to check, make sure it's nothing that will get out of control." He turns to look over his shoulder. "Daredemon? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry, just catching my breath," he says lamely as he moves closer -- not as close as he'd like, but as close as he dares. "Let's split up and find their entry point."

“I’ll take the ground level.” Darkwing jumps, wings unfurling to slow his descent, and Dean has to bite his lip before moving in the opposite direction, checking all the possible access points until he’s back in the same place. Darkwing alights next to where he crouches, considering. 

“I don’t see any signs of entry, but there’s definitely something on fire inside.”

Dean considers what Charlie said about the uptick of fires, how they’ve been escalating, but this doesn’t seem to fit. It’s an empty location, not even a night watchman on duty, and the last several fires have been in buildings with people.

“Let’s find a discreet way in, it’s probably an equipment fire. We’ll just put it out and find something else to do.” 

“Well, you do owe me a drink, since I was here first.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says glibly, hoping it covers the way his heartbeat just quickened. “I think I know just the thing, wait here.” There’s a dumpster against one wall, and he jumps down to it, surveying the high windows. He whistles lowly. A moment later he feels a gust of wind against his skin as Darkwing lands and as Dean turns to him, their eyes meet. In the night everything is shades of grey, even with enhanced sight, and he wishes he knew what color those eyes were. They're something light, he's sure of it, but that's as much as he can tell. He knows Darkwing must have night sight as well, wonders how he must look in the shadows: if it's possible to see that his eyes are green, or memorize the planes of his face to the degree that he'd recognize Dean without the simple mask he wears to cover the upper part of his face. 

Darkwing's lips part, as though he's going to speak, but he takes in a sharp breath instead. His eyes flick down to Dean's lips just for a moment, and he can't help but grin. _Maybe I'm not alone in this_ , he thinks, but just as he's about to lean in Darkwing breaks eye contact and turns his gaze to the window pane above them. _Fuck. What am I doing? Fuck._

“I’ve got this tool, I mean this, uh, _doohickey_ , um, just hang on.” 

It’s like his fingers have forgotten how to function, and he nearly fumbles the slim, metal device that he pulls out of one of his torso compartments. 

“Maybe you should get a utility belt.”

“Nah, makes me look fat.”

He aims it at the large pane of glass and presses a small button. There’s no sound, but the glass transforms instantly into a cloud of sand that falls into the warehouse as if blown by a gust of wind. 

“What…”

“Vaporizes glass back into sand for easy and quiet entry. Took ages to figure out how to get it to blow the sand _away_ from my direction, though.”

“How did you…”

"I'll go first," Dean says, then hoists himself silently up onto the slim edge of the windowpane without giving Darkwing a chance to continue. He perches there long enough to get a read on the inside, moving silently onto a set of shelving that reminds him of a giant home improvement store, with shrink wrapped pallets of some unidentified material filling most of the spaces in the rack. He can see light from the fire flickering against the far wall, can smell just as Darkwing had that the fire hasn't spread. Could be a forklift engine that’s caught fire. He points as he feels Darkwing move into position beside him, and then they make their way down to floor level, Dean swinging down the racks as Darkwing silently glides to the ground, both of them crouching in the shadows as they listen for any movement.

"I don't sense anyone else here." Darkwing speaks just a hair's breadth above silence, like fingertips caressing the skin, and Dean has to close his eyes for a moment before he can also concentrate on their surroundings and agree with that assessment.

"Flank?" 

The briefest nod and then Darkwing moves to the right, utterly silent in the ebon dark even to Dean's ears. He moves to the end of the row in the opposite direction, then strafes along the wall in the direction of the flames. His discussion with Charlie is still in the forefront of his mind, and so despite the innocuous appearance of the situation he's on high alert, searching every shadow for signs of a trap as he draws closer. 

Ten feet from the source of the flames the storage racks come to an end, and sure enough there's nothing in this corner of the warehouse but an oil drum that's burning merrily, without any sign of the person who set it. Darkwing is already standing there, warming his hands over the fire, and when he glances up Dean gives him a sardonic look before turning to grab a nearby fire extinguisher from the wall.

Darkwing pouts as he backs away, clasping his hands together in front of him. _It is unbecoming of such a badass to be so cute_ , he thinks before he can help it, then bites the inside of his lip as he puts out the fire. 

"This is weird, right?"

"Kids, perhaps? Maybe one works here, has keys to the building. They could have started it and then gotten spooked?"

"Yeah, but it hasn't been burning that long, less than half an hour at most." Dean looks around the dark space, even more on edge than before. "I don't like this. It feels strange."

"Like someone was deliberately trying to lure us here?" Darkwing follows Dean's gaze, searching the shadows, then looking up into the rafters. "We should go, quickly, and not the way we came in. There." He points to a catwalk up near the ceiling, leading to a door up high that must be for roof access. 

"Alright, meet you there."

"Let me carry you, it'll be quicker."

"Oh _hell_ no, it's undignified."

"Your machismo is unnecessary here, there's no one to see."

"No, but I'll _know_ ," Dean throws over his shoulder as he leaps up the nearest rack and climbs to the top, finding his way to the catwalk where Darkwing is waiting, arms crossed with a scowl on his face. "See? It didn't take that long."

"If this had been a trap it might have made all the difference." Dean shrugs as he squeezes past, pushing the door open to let them both out onto an area of the roof where the ventilation units are. 

They're opposite the loading docks now, facing an empty lot where employees probably park, and beyond that another warehouse. Still, Dean pauses, staring out at the expanse of black asphalt and the ghost of white lines that delineate the spots. He crouches at the edge of the roof, reaching out with all his senses, but only one bears fruit.

"Do you smell that?" 

Darkwing drops into a crouch as well. "It’s an accelerant. Lighter fluid?"

"Yeah, but a lot of it. Like a spill, maybe?"

Darkwing seems to consider that, but then shakes his head. "No, it’s spread out over a large area, but what would be the point of spraying an empty parking lot with lighter fluid?”

“There is no point, unless you’re the Crow.” 

Dean considers for a moment, then stands to pull one of his guns from the double holster at his lower back. 

"What are you doing?"

Dean inhales through his nose and takes aim, peering into the darkness, then squeezes the trigger at the end of a long exhale. Time slows down as the bullet leaves the chamber, whistling through the night air to strike the edge of a curb stop before ricocheting into the darkness. Dean frowns as Darkwing looks up at him.

"Was that supposed to do what I think it was?"

"It always works in the movies!"

Darkwing stands up, shaking his head. "It's possible, but improbable. Don't you ever watch Mythbusters?"

"Don't you ever watch Mythbusters?" Dean mocks under his breath in a singsong voice as Darkwing pulls something out of his costume. "Where do you even have pockets in that outfit?"

The only answer is a metal click and an abrasive snick, and then Darkwing tosses the lighter out over the parking lot close to where the bullet hit. It strikes the asphalt and flickers alone for only a moment, and then suddenly it catches. Like watching dominos tumble, the flame licks out and follows a predetermined path, illuminating the ground as it chases the fuel. It only takes a few minutes, but from their vantage point they can clearly read the word painted there, in fiery letters of elegant script:

_Legacy_.

"It has to be them. Nothing else makes sense."

"But even _that_ doesn't make sense, not really."

It's early in the morning now, still dark outside, but Dean and Charlie have been down in the Cave for hours already.

He and Darkwing had stood silent and frozen for some time, watching the fiery letters burning themselves out on the asphalt. Dean had been too stunned to speak while the wheels of his mind turned, going over what he thought that word could mean, and when the last of the flames flickered out into darkness he'd simply said "I have to go."

Darkwing had turned and put out one hand as if to hold him back, but Dean refused to hear the plea on his lips as he turned and ran. He'd spent another hour taking a circuitous route back to the neighborhood, moving under cover whenever it was possible. He couldn't feel Darkwing's gaze on him as he ran but he didn't trust himself to be sure, not now. He wasted another thirty minutes hiding in the underground parking garage next to Bobby's place until he was sure he wasn’t being followed, then took the seldom used alternate entrance, hidden behind an access panel in a dark corner of the lowest level and obscured by a cement pillar. As soon as he'd gotten into the Cave and confirmed he was secure, he'd called Charlie.

They're on their second pot of coffee at this point, and Charlie's knee is bouncing uncontrollably as she sits at the terminal, eyes roving across the partitioned screen as she tries to tie it all together. First he'd told her exactly what he'd seen at the warehouse, then told her his suspicions.

"I hear what you're saying, and I know you need more to connect the dots, but I know what I felt in my gut."

"But why now? You've never had any contact with them, and they've certainly never showed any interest in you or Sam, not even since your dad died. Do they even know about your abilities?"

He rubs the back of his neck as he searches his memory, closing his eyes and picking through his tired brain. "Dad never would have contacted them after Mom died, so I don’t know how much they know about the two of us. Maybe they finally decided to do some research, see if we ever manifested. Sam said earlier the increase in arson activity was meant to draw my attention, like some kind of lure. Maybe that's why it's fire."

"You think they're deliberately referencing what killed your mother as a way to communicate with you?" 

"Look, I really don't know how much of what Dad ever told me about them was true, or what was twisted because of his own bitter relationship with them. I just know that the research you and Sam have done on them suggests that some of their beliefs are bizarre."

“Well, that’s generations of clan mentality for you. Practically cults.” Charlie purses her lips as she manipulates her cursor through several folders so quickly that even Dean has trouble keeping up, finally double clicking on one labeled _Campbell_ and then a document called _Bios_. 

"I wouldn't believe it of Gwen," she murmurs, scrolling down a bit. "She's more level headed than the rest of them, and though she tends to hang back and let others take the lead, she doesn't go along with things that don't suit her."

"Agreed. Samuel is the one I thought of first, because of what happened with Mom."

"Ugh. Doesn't anyone believe in good, clean science? Who arranges marriages anymore?"

"Purebloods, that's who."

"I guess you're lucky you're a mudblood then," Charlie grouses as she keeps scrolling. "Still though, she was his only child. I have a hard time believing he could casually play around with her cause of death, Dean. It seems too callous, even for him, and your grandma would never stand for it. Mary's death devastated her by all accounts."

"She probably thought they'd reconcile someday, I don't know. Maybe Mom did, too, and that's why she named us after them." He shakes his head, then rubs his eyes. He's not tearing up, he's just tired, damn it. "Too bad Samuel's as stubborn as a mule."

"Yes, and that's not a gene that got passed down to his grandsons at _all."_

"Shut up. What about the other cousin, Christian? What's he calling himself these days?"

"Switchblade Syko, and I still cringe every time I see the spelling. If he had to battle English majors regularly I'd understand, but there's no reasonable explanation for making me endure that." She sighs, turning away from the monitors and putting her feet up on the chair, hugging her knees. "Like I said, though, it still doesn't make sense. From what we've been able to gather about how the Campbells work, Christian is next in line to lead. Trying to bring you into the fold would jeopardize his position." 

"What if what he wants isn't to bring me into the fold, but make sure I never get a chance to threaten his status?"

"Okay, but why not just kill you outright? Why all the taunting? There's not even a discernible pattern here. Fires in abandoned buildings, then a few that were populated, and now he's writing in lighter fluid in random parking lots hoping you'll set it on fire so you can see how good his cursive is?"

"Alright, alright, I get it." He crosses his arms in exasperation. "I can't stop seeing it. I just close my eyes and it's there, that one word, burning bright against the darkness. It just felt very symbolic, a message only I would understand."

"I actually agree with you there. It's definitely a message." She starts clicking her pen, a telltale sign that she's desperately trying to figure something out. Things usually come easy to Charlie, and her frustration bleeds out in little ways when she's faced with a problem that can't be easily untangled. "What if someone's fishing? Another faction trying to gain leverage over the Campbells, trying to find out what happened to their wayward daughter?"

"Finding anything besides that would be nearly impossible, though, you know they fabricated new identities for themselves when they married, and Frank Deveraux’s forgery is pure artistry."

"Yeah, but sometimes you take a lot of shots in the dark in the hope of hitting something."

"You mean like Sam when I make him do target practice?"

"He's got such long arms! It seems like he should have an edge, considering he's holding the gun closer to the target than anyone else. He shoots like a stormtrooper."

Dean laughs, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Thank goodness he has other gifts." 

"Speaking of gifts..."

"No. I don't want to ask him to try and See. He hates when it happens, so I won't ask him to do it on purpose."

"Yeah, okay, you're right. Should we even tell him?"

"There's nothing to tell yet, not really, and I don't want to make him worry until he needs to."

Charlie forces herself to release the pen, letting it clatter onto the workspace before squinting her eyes at him. 

"This is going to hurt, but I have to ask. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe it's your new buddy doing all this?"

"What? No! Why the hell would he..."

"Dean, come on. You have to admit that circumstances here changed when he entered the picture. Maybe he's playing some kind of game, or laying an elaborate trap."

"What the hell for?"

"Superhero sex slave?" 

"That is _ridiculous_."

"True, it seems stupid to go through so much trouble to trick you into something you would do willingly. Maybe he just doesn't know how to ask?"

"Okay, out. Get out of my cave."

"You can't kick me out, I have equal rights."

"Your name ain't on the door, so that means I outrank you." 

Charlie opens her mouth to protest, but Dean just points, and her eyes follow his finger to the wooden plaque there before she audibly groans. 

_The Dean Cave -- My Cave, My Rules!_

"I can't believe you talked Ash into making that for you."

"You were the one who bet him that he was too stoned in high school to remember anything from wood shop, so you have no one to blame but yourself. Get out, I'm gonna go to sleep here and then help Bobby this afternoon."

It's early evening before Dean gets back to his apartment and heads directly to the shower, eager to wash off the grime from the garage. There's a part of him that really wants to go to bed for a few hours after that, see if he can get some more sleep before he goes back out on patrol tonight. He'd gotten six in after he finally kicked Charlie out of the cave, so bone tired that he'd slept hard, but ever since then his mind has been racing with the events of the night before. Bobby knew he was distracted, but years of experience as Dean's father in practice if not by blood had taught him when to leave well enough alone. 

Dean strips bare as the shower heats up, then gets under the spray with an audible groan, washing himself perfunctorily before he braces his hands against the wall to let the water fall on the back of his neck and shoulders, watching it disappear into the drain after it cascades down his body. He wants to lose the tension he's been holding in his muscles all day, but he can't stop thinking about how he ran from Darkwing without a word, can't stop thinking about the look on his face as he’d turned away. 

_What if that was the last time I'll ever see him?_

It's the thought that's been nagging him all day: if Darkwing feels compromised, he's not going to stick around when Daredemon is suddenly drawing someone's attention. 

It's some time before he makes himself shut off the water, leaving the shower in a cloud of steam, and as he wraps a towel around himself he hears music from the other room.

"Hey Sam," he says as he cuts off Avicii. "I'm just getting out of the shower."

"It's about time you took one of those."

"Well, it's only because I'm spending time with your wife later."

"Nope, sorry. She's standing you up, says she got a better offer."

"What the hell could be better than hanging out with the brother she wishes she'd married?"

"She's covering someone else's shift tonight, so I guess saving lives?"

"Okay. I concede, that is better. But barely."

"So can you pick me up? Charlie said she'd take me home tonight, but she's over at Ash's right now and it's already five minutes from the bar."

"You know, if you didn't drive such a fancy foreign car maybe you could actually take it places you needed to go, instead of being afraid to take your eyes off it."

"Maybe if we went to nice, classy bars I wouldn't need to worry about parking my sweet ride outside a hive of scum and villainy for several hours."

"When did you get so high maintenance?"

"When I bought a goddamn BMW, obviously, are you picking me up or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course, see you in a bit." He drops the phone back onto the coffee table, then uses the towel to dry his hair as he walks back to the bedroom naked, muttering under his breath about little brothers and their skewed priorities. He doesn't begrudge Sam the life that he has, not at all. He's proud of his little brother's success, at the choices he made for himself. He just wishes one of those was better taste in cars. 

He shakes his head as he pulls into the driveway and waits behind the sleek black BMW as Sam opens the front door and comes bounding down the front steps like an overgrown puppy, dressed as casually as Dean in jeans and a dark grey henley. He's already on his phone as he slides into the front seat, answering emails with rapid-fire keystrokes as Dean backs out into the street.

"Do you traumatize your Versace suits by hanging that shirt next to them in the closet?"

"The fact that you know they're Versace says more about you than it does about me," Sam says without even looking up, and Dean huffs but doesn't reply. 

The place is packed, which isn't unusual for Friday night karaoke. Thankfully Charlie and Ash are both already there, holding down a table in the back corner for all of them. 

"You're just in time," Charlie says, sliding beers in front of the two of them. "Please help me convince this fool that no one wants to hear his rendition of Britney Spears."

"Are we talking pre or post _Blackout?_ "

"Dean, please do not help him traumatize me, I beg you."

"Where's the catalogue? Do they have ‘Piece of Me’?"

"Sam! First do no harm!"

"Charlie, I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, and my client is well within his rights to perform Britney Spears in a public venue if he wishes."

“Gracias, amigo.”

She groans, banging her head on the table. "I did this to myself. I am literally responsible for putting all of you in the same room together and it has backfired on me horribly."

Dean pats her on the back as he sips his beer, and Sam flips the pages of the karaoke book with a frown. "There is a shocking lack of Britney in here, nothing but the _Circus_ album." 

"I will give you twenty bucks to do ‘Womanizer’," Dean says, and Charlie makes a pained sound. 

Sam points at something, and Ash leans over his shoulder to look. "Fifty bucks and you're on." 

With a grin, Sam pulls three twenties out of his wallet and hands them over. "Keep the change."

"I hate you all," Charlie mutters into the table as Sam fills out a slip with a mini pencil and takes it up to the table. "What have I ever done to any of you?"

"You referred to my new equipment as a 'gentle man shell' yesterday."

"How dare you refer to my glorious Panthera armor in that manner," Ash says in mock outrage with a hand over his heart, and Charlie finally lifts her head and gives him the finger. Ash just grins in return, then squints into the distance over Dean's shoulder. "Who's that your brother is talking to?"

Dean turns, easily finding Sam standing over at the bar head and shoulders above the rest, but whoever he’s talking to is obscured by the crowd. "What's she look like?"

"It's a dude. Overdressed for this place, honestly." 

"Probably one of Sam's law buddies."

"I thought the point of coming to this place was so that we could avoid all the lawyer types," Charlie mutters, and at that moment the crowd moves enough for Dean to see the profile of who's sitting on the stool, leaning one elbow on the bar as he talks to Sam.

"Fuck. It's him."

"Him who?" Ash asks, but Charlie's eyes widen and she sits up a bit, trying to see. 

"Oh, wow. That's him?" Dean pulls her back down.

"Could you not draw attention to us, please? I don't want him to see me."

"I repeat, him _who_?"

"It's Dean's dream guy," Charlie says, squealing with malicious glee at this turn of events like it's karma. "The one he's been pining over ever since they met."

"Oh shit, the one you ditched on your date?" Now Ash is rising out of his seat to look, and Dean wishes fervently that a black hole would open up beneath their table.

"Not because I wanted to, okay?"

Charlie and Ash hum in sympathy, and Dean risks another glance in the direction of the bar. He breathes a sigh of relief when it seems that Sam is returning all alone, but the expression on his face is dark.

"Who's your friend?" 

"That's Cas," Sam says, answering Ash but glaring at Dean. "He works with me."

"Does he want to join us?" Charlie asks innocently as he sits back down, and Dean kicks her under the table. She kicks him back, and he nearly flinches. Those tiny feet are lethal. "He looks like he's all by himself."

"Yeah, I asked him, but for some reason he'd rather sit alone at the bar than come over here where my friends and my _brother_ are sitting." 

"Sam, come on."

"You could at least talk to him, Dean, tell him you're sorry it didn't work out..."

"I wouldn't _have_ to apologize for hurting his feelings if you hadn't set us up in the first place. I've told you a hundred times why I can't date civilians and you never listen!"

"I thought you'd make an effort considering you'd been drooling over him for months! Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it was seeing your dopey expression around him all the time?"

"And you haven't had to see it for the last three months, so mission accomplished, I guess."

"That's because you take the circuitous route to my office whenever you deign to visit now, and that one time you saw him coming up the hall you hid in the stairwell!"

"What am I supposed to do, Sam? It's not like he even wants to talk to me, either. Look, he's leaving now."

The man at the bar -- Cas -- gets up from his seat, and Dean tries not to appreciate the way his white button down pulls across his shoulders as he fishes money out of his wallet. He absolutely does not stare at the exposed forearms where the shirt cuffs have been rolled up to the elbows, nor the dark scruff on his clenched jaw as he drapes his suit jacket over one arm and walks out the door without a backwards glance.

"Wow. That was cold-blooded, amigo." 

"No shit. I bet that hurt."

"Like getting hit with a metal chair, yeah."

"If you'd just make an effort to apologize maybe..."

"And say what?"

"Make something up!"

"Yes, I should lie to him outright. That will definitely form the basis of a beautiful friendship." Sam looks chagrined for the moment, staring down into his beer, and Dean sighs. "Look. I know you meant well, and I appreciate it. But you have to admit now that I'm right when I say I can't get involved with people, because this is what happens. It's what always happens, even if I really like them."

"So you _did_ like him?"

"What, do you want a cookie? You called it, good for you, you're a regular matchmaker. Except then I had to hurt that person's feelings, and now I'm pretty sure they hate me for it. How's your cookie taste?"

Sam cringes, and even Ash looks pained. 

"Maybe I could talk to him for you?"

"And say what? 'My brother was having a great time, but a building blew up and he had to bail?' You'll have a hard time making that stick when he knows I'm a mechanic, not a firefighter."

_Three Months Ago_

"Hello, Dean. Are you waiting for Sam?"

He looks up from his phone, startled, his throat suddenly dry. Oh, god. It's him, the hot guy from Sam's office, the one with the piercing blue eyes and the shy smile that makes him melt. 

"Cas? Hey! I mean, hi, I mean, uh." He wants to smack himself in the face, but instead takes the offered hand and gives it a shake. "Yeah, he's running a bit late. Do you want to sit down?"

"He didn't tell me you were joining us for dinner," Cas says as he removes his trench coat before sliding into the opposite booth. "When he said ‘us’ I just assumed he meant Eileen."

"No, she's working tonight, that's probably why you're stuck with me." 

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. It's nice to see you for more than five minutes as you wander past my office." Cas looks away as if embarrassed, and Dean's knees go weak. 

"Well, I don't want to get you in trouble while you're working, otherwise I'd spend a lot more time talking to you." Much smoother than his opening salvo, thank god. He just might manage to remain calm until Sam gets here. 

"I don't think anyone in that office is paying enough attention to me to notice whether I'm working or not." The waiter appears to take their drink orders, and when Cas orders Dean’s favorite beer he can't help but smile as he orders the same.

"What's the matter, having trouble at work?" 

"No, no trouble. It's just that I kind of keep to myself, and I don't really interact with anyone unless I have to, so I think people have just learned to ignore me." 

"I didn't."

"You don't work there, it doesn't count."

"Sam didn't either." 

"Yes, well. Sam is determined to be friendly to everyone he meets, so I didn't really stand a chance."

"He gets that from me."

Cas actually laughs, his smile wide and open, and Dean hopes that it takes Sam a long, long time to show up. 

"Yes, I can see that. You both have the same charm." 

"Yeah, well, I had it first." He winks at Cas, who looks like he's actually blushing when the waiter returns with their drinks and asks if they're ready to order. "Let's not wait for Sam, I'm starving. If you've never been here before I highly recommend, well, everything, but I prefer the products of beef persuasion."

"Are there any that come with a pork accompaniment?" 

"Of course, allow me." He takes the menu away from him and hands both to the server. "Two bacon double cheeseburgers, fries, and another round of beers when the food is ready." He's puzzled by the look on Cas's face as the waiter leaves, and he nervously sips from his beer, worried he made the wrong call. "What?"

"That's the closest I've come to foreplay in over a year," Cas deadpans, and Dean nearly sprays liquid out of his nostrils, choking on the effort to keep his composure.

"Christ, Cas, warn a guy before you drop a bomb like that." His dinner companion just grins, and Dean marvels at how many facets he has, at his ability to shift from shy and awkward to wry and wicked. It's something he's only been able to get glimpses of in the last year or so, making excuses to go visit Sam at the office so he'd have a reason to talk to him. 

"Sorry."

"No, you're not." Cas just shrugs, picking up his beer only to gaze at Dean over the rim of the glass. "I don't believe you for a second, anyway. I've been to that office, I've seen all the interns swooning in your general direction. Do you know they have a pool going about which of them is going to land you first?"

"Who's in the lead?"

"Right now it's a tie between Hannah and Alfie."

"Who do you have your money on?"

_Me,_ Dean thinks. "Neither seems like your type."

"Oh? Have you gathered enough intel on me to know my type?"

"It's more of a gut feeling."

"And what does your gut say?"

"That Hannah isn't packaged to your liking, but Alfie's entirely too young for you. I don't think you like twinks as much as men."

The air grows heavy as they regard one another, their eyes saying a whole host of things in the silence between them. The heat of Cas's gaze is like lips on the pulse point of his throat, heavy with intent and need, and Dean’s own lips part slightly as he wonders if he should reach out and touch. 

The waiter inconveniently comes back with their food at that moment, and Dean blinks rapidly as fresh beers are set in front of them along with identical plates. He stares down at his food like he can't remember what it's doing there, and when he finally looks at Cas again, he’s inspecting his burger like nothing had passed between them at all. Dean shifts slightly in his seat, taking his phone out of his back pocket to cover up the action. It's been over an hour since his brother was supposed to be here, he realizes, firing off a text message.

"Any word from Sam?" Cas asks before biting into his burger, then lifting his eyes to the heavens as he chews and swallows. "Oh my god, this is the most sinful thing I've ever had in my mouth."

"I told you to warn a guy!"

"You weren't in any danger of choking on your drink this time."

_> I'm not gonna make it after all. Have fun with Cas, show him a good time!_

"Oh, that sneaky bastard," he mutters under his breath, putting his phone away in disgust.

Cas squints at him. "He's not coming?"

"No." Dean picks up his burger, wondering how long it will be before Cas finds a reason to leave. Instead he chews thoughtfully for a few minutes.

"We're on a date, aren't we?"

"Seems like." He braces for the reaction, and is surprised when Cas just laughs a little bit, shaking his head as he reaches for a french fry. "You're not mad?"

"At Sam? No, of course not. Should I be?"

"You don't think he was being presumptuous?"

"He knows that I'm too shy to make connections on my own, he can see that I enjoy talking to you, and if you've figured out that I'm gay then he most certainly has. Looks like his presumptions were all correct."

"Why aren't you mad?"

"About what?"

"About Sam manipulating you to go on a blind date with his loser brother?"

"Oh! I’m sorry, I assumed my date was with _you_. Tell me about this other brother of yours, is he at least good looking enough to compensate for being a loser?"

"Stop making me laugh when I'm trying to make a point!"

"I think the only point to be made is that this can be billed to Sam as a business dinner, so we should feel free to stay as long as we like and have a few more drinks." Dean just stares at him open-mouthed, and the playful grin starts to slip from Cas's face. "Unless you're really uncomfortable, in which case I won't keep you. We can just finish our meals and part ways, no hard feelings."

_Holy shit. Is he really disappointed at the thought?_

"How about a small intermission while I use the bathroom, and then we can pick up where we left off?"

Cas gives him a small smile, and Dean returns it before sliding out of the booth to saunter off to the back as casually as he can manage. Thankfully there's no one in there, so he shuts himself into the lone stall and leans against the door with his hands on his knees, trying to calm his racing heart.

_Pull yourself together. You’re on a date, he’s hot, and he seems to like you. Be cool._ He thinks about how he's going to kill Sam anyway for this, because he definitely would have dressed better. He damn well wouldn't have picked _Benny's_ for a first date, goddamn, he loves the joint but it’s not exactly romantic. 

He takes a few more deep breaths, centering himself the way John taught him when he was first learning to control his powers, when every sound and scent in a five mile radius was like an invasion. 

It's just as he opens the stall door that the air shatters with a loud boom, and the entire building begins to shake.

"Fuck." He can smell the smoke and hear the crackle of flames, and on the tail end of that comes another sound. The sound of screaming. 

It's then that the realization hits him, the stark truth that he doesn't have anything good to offer the man out in the restaurant. He remembers every scrap of information he's gleaned from their brief flirtations over the course of nearly a year, hoarding each small insight to construct an image of domestic pornography that he calls up whenever he fantasizes about a life that isn't actually his own: curling up together to watch bad TV with takeout after work, going grocery shopping on a Saturday morning, waking up in the night to find Cas still reading by the bedside lamp because he's too absorbed in a book to put it down. 

That's not a life Dean will ever get to have. He wants Cas, and maybe Cas even wants him back, but what he deserves is something Dean can never give -- a life of long nights and uninterrupted touches.

The buoyant bliss he'd been feeling for the last hour pops like a soap bubble, and he takes a long look at the window high above the stall. He closes his eyes and clenches his fists. 

"I'm so sorry," he whispers, and then he's out the window and into the alley below. He doffs the flannel shirt he was wearing over the black tee and black pants of his uniform, the holster at his lower back no longer obscured by the loose fit. He pulls his mask out of its hidden pocket, then pulls up the hood before racing towards the burning building across the street.

He saves three people trapped in a corner unit before Darkwing makes an appearance, but for the first time Dean barely takes note of his presence. His thoughts are too full of Cas and what he must be thinking right now, sitting alone in Benny’s Bar and Grill as the realization dawns that Dean is never coming back.

"I never should've listened to you," Sam slurs from the passenger seat as Dean tries to buckle the seat belt over him, but he's had at least six shots on top of enough beer to drown an actual moose, and he’s difficult to maneuver. "Should've made you give it all up."

"Is that so?" He grunts as the seat belt finally clicks into place, leaning back against the driver's side for a moment to catch his breath. Thank god for superstrength, or he'd never have been able to get Sam's drunk ass to the car at all. He’s like an octopus trying to walk upright on land. "Why would you want that?"

"So you would be happy."

"Sammy, I'm..."

"No. No lie to me."

"I see we've reached the regressive stage where you talk like you're four." Dean's only had one beer because he has to patrol, and he knows from experience that being around drunk people is only fun when you, yourself, are also drunk. He clenches his jaw as he pulls out of the lot, the midnight street already deserted even on a Friday night.

"Dean." Sam's left arm flails out, and he bats it away. "You're all alone. Me no likey."

He sighs. "I'm okay, Sam."

"Are not." Sam crosses his arms and actually pouts. "Want you to be."

"I know. You're a good brother."

"Am not." His right foot shuffles against the wheel well in agitation. "Thought Cas would be good for you. Wanted you to hit it off. You made each other smile." He blows air out through his lips like a frustrated child. "Now neither of you smile. Won't even look at each other. Took it away from you. Feel guilty."

"Sammy."

"Saaaaaaam. Don't call me Sammy, I'm a _lawyer_."

"Yes, you're a true model of the legal profession at the moment, but not as much as when you were singing 'Peacock' by Katy Perry an hour ago."

His brother giggles, but he'll find it far less hilarious when he learns that Dean has video. Sam hasn't been this wasted in years and Dean never misses an opportunity for blackmail fodder, though he wonders if it's worth it when he considers that he'll have to drag Sam up the front steps of his house and try to unlock the door. He breathes out a sigh of relief when he sees that Eileen's car is in the driveway and the downstairs lights are still on.

_> Hey sis, can you open the door? I've got an oversize package to deliver._

He's managed to get the passenger door open and is trying to negotiate with Sam's loose limbs when Eileen steps out onto the stoop, arms crossed and shaking her head. 

"I'll let you get in the house before I ask you what happened." Dean communicates his gratitude with his eyes as he finally gets Sam upright, then transports him into the house with a blatant show of strength that he hopes none of the neighbors are awake to see. "Just put him in the recliner."

"Baby," Sam says with a smile, holding out his arms and gesturing for her to come closer, then pulling her down to sit sideways in his lap, snuggling into her chest. 

"Why did he drink so much?" She strokes his hair with one hand, signing to Dean with the other.

"Guilt." He elaborates off her questioning look. "You know his friend, the one he set me up with that I had to ditch?"

"Dean, I told him that was a bad idea, I swear. He doesn't think things through sometimes."

"I know. I'm glad you understand. Everybody else acts like I'm just being difficult."

"It's just hard for them to accept what you have to sacrifice." 

"Not you, though."

"That's because I have faith that it will all work out for you someday, and when it does it will be just the right time. And the right person."

"I hope I don't end up with a giant moose who drools all over me when he lets his guilty conscience pick up the bar tab."

"What did you mean, about his friend?"

"Ah. He was there, having a drink by himself. Sam invited him to join us, but he saw that I was there and left instead. I mean, can you blame the guy? I wouldn't want to be around me either." He shakes his head as his brother starts to snore lightly, the arms around Eileen going slack. "Anyway, Sam started telling me I need to talk to him, it turned into a bit of an argument, he felt like an ass and here's the end result."

Eileen sighs. "For a smart guy he's really dumb sometimes."

"He was doing baby talk on the way here.

"Oh god, really? What'd he say?"

"After 'me no likey'?" Eileen giggles at that, but Sam doesn't wake up. "He thinks it's his fault Cas and I avoid each other now."

"Well. Technically he's not wrong."

"Yeah, but him dwelling on it doesn't do anything."

"Maybe you could tell Cas that you got spooked because you realized you were on a date and you weren't ready, and tell him you really just want to be friends? It's not even a lie."

"The part about _just_ wanting to be friends is."

"Not if you'd rather have that than nothing. He's a really sweet man, Dean, I think he'd accept your apology. Then you could at least go back to visiting Sam at work and chatting with Cas while you were there."

"You're probably right." He sighs, standing upright. "Do you need me to help you get him upstairs before I go?" 

"He can sleep it off here. I'll put his feet up and get him a blanket as soon as I can pry myself loose, don't worry."

He leans down to press a kiss into her hair, and she squeezes his forearm before he pulls away. "Text me in the morning and let me know how he is?"

"Of course. Stay safe tonight."

"Always." He gives a mock salute before heading out the door and into the night, but blue eyes and a shy smile never quite leave his mind, and no sexy costumed crusaders show up to distract him either.


	3. Chapter 3

"It's been three weeks and nothing," Charlie mutters, clicking furiously through different graphs on the screen. 

"You say that like you _want_ more arson."

"I want more data, don't conflate the two things."

"Maybe they've given up. That clickbait setup to send their little message definitely felt like jumping the shark."

"Or maybe they don't feel like they need to hide their taunts behind elaborate set dressing anymore," Bobby says as he enters the room carrying two boxes of pizza with several paper plates stacked on top of them. Charlie's eyes gleam, and she turns back to the workstation to start typing furiously, stopping only long enough to hold up one finger to shush Dean when he opens his mouth to ask a question. 

"How does she do that?" he says to Bobby instead. "She didn't even look up."

"Probably because you got a loud mouth, even when it ain't talking."

"Christ, your tongue is like a razor, no wonder you're still single."

"That's what you think."

"What?"

"Gentlemen," Charlie interrupts, pointing to the four images currently taking up the large screen. "I think Bobby's on to something."

"Are those..."

"I went through all the crime scene photos from the suspected arson cases. I've been through them before, but they seemed unremarkable at first."

"They still do to me, maybe supersight over here can see what you mean."

"Nope, I've got nothing." Dean leans over, squinting at the screen. "Can you, I don't know, enhance two twenty-four to one seventy-six?"

"Your Harrison Ford obsession is so cute sometimes," Charlie says, blowing up the image in the left corner of the screen. Dean stands up abruptly.

“Once you see it…” Charlie says.

“You can’t unsee it.” He checks the other three pictures, easily picking out what's there now that he knows what to look for.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Charlie blows up the other pictures, and Bobby lets out a low whistle before taking a bite of pizza.

Dean had recognized the scenes easily before Charlie enlarged parts of them, because he’d been at every one. The top two were abandoned homes, and one had been empty when he'd arrived but from the other he'd rescued a young kid who'd been squatting there, trapped on the second floor but still unharmed when Daredemon had come to the rescue. In the bottom left was an office building that had been empty at that time of night, next to it a dilapidated storefront downtown. Now that a small section of each photo has been blown up on the giant monitor, even Bobby can clearly make out the thread that connects them all together.

"How is that possible?" 

"Some kind of fire retardant substance, like an intumescent paint maybe? Everything around it would burn, while those sections blackened and the paint swelled. Subtle, unless you’re looking carefully enough to see it stand out from the rest." 

From a scorched section of wall in each picture, a single word stands out. _Duty. Loyalty. Honor. Clan._

"Fuck. Are there any others?"

"Bring me two slices of the veggie while I look through the other photos."

Dean gets himself a slice of meat lovers as he does. 

"They must have realized they were being _too_ subtle and not getting the message across at all,” Bobby says as he wipes his mouth with a greasy napkin.

“So they choose three foot high letters in an empty parking lot.”

"I don't understand this. Do you think it could be Mom's clan?"

"It sounds like the kind of bullshit mantras they cling to, but I can't see the reasoning. Why now, after all this time? Don't make a lick of sense."

"Maybe there's some kind of internal conflict going on and they want to clue me in?"

"What, like Rome is burning? I don't think any of your cousins are that clever. Well, maybe Gwen."

"Um..."

"Did you find more?" Charlie glances up at Dean, her already pale face two shades lighter than normal, but instead of answering she double clicks the mouse. Dean recognizes this place, too: it's an apartment building, the one near the very bar where he'd been enjoying Cas's company until the reality of his lifestyle had exploded across the street. "Is that the back of the building?"

Charlie just nods, double-clicking again along the roofline. It would surely have been dismissed as graffiti, but after viewing all the other pictures Dean recognizes the way these letters look. This phrase is different, but it sends a chill through him to the roots of his hair.

"You better get Sam on the phone," Bobby says in a whisper, and Charlie nearly knocks her pizza to the floor in her scramble to make the call.

"Hey guys, I wasn't expecting to hear from..." Sam trails off, taking a moment to look at all their faces before glancing offscreen. "That'll be all for now, Kevin, thank you. Can you close the door on your way out?" Dean can just imagine the look on poor Kevin's face at being summarily dismissed, but even the sound of him fumbling papers as he gets up and beats a hasty retreat doesn't amuse the way it normally would. The sympathy on Sam's face disappears with the loud click of the door latching, and he turns to the screen with a solemn expression. "What happened?"

Dean holds his tongue as Charlie explains what they've been working on, and Sam gets a pinched look on his face when she tells him about the empty warehouse and the message waiting for them in the parking lot. She deftly doesn't mention that Dean had company since not even Bobby knows about that, and he makes a mental note to thank her later. By the time she finishes with the day's events, Sam is breathing through his nose like a bull preparing to charge a matador.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me about any of this until now."

"We wanted to be sure there was something to tell first. You've got more important things to do every day."

"More important than worrying about your safety?"

"Sam, I'm perfectly safe, come on now." 

"You won't be if this keeps up. What if they're planning to get you in a vulnerable position, kidnap you, take you hostage for..."

"I don't think they'd be dropping continuous hints if that was their plan, Sam."

"And what do you think their plan is, Bobby?"

"I don't think we have enough information to be sure. Maybe Dean should start going out full time, dusk to dawn, see if he can find something else that'll help us figure this out."

"Yeah, that's a great idea, I can definitely..."

"No!"

"What do you mean, no? You're not the boss of me."

"That's exactly what I am, unless you've forgotten who's paying your salary."

"Jesus Christ, Sam, you sound like an angry taxpayer yelling at a cop who won't let you park in front of a fire hydrant."

"Oh, I'm being irrational, is that what you're saying?"

"When you refuse to let me do my job then yes, that is what I'm saying."

"Your job is to fix cars."

"That was way harsh, Sam, come on."

"Don't you start, Charlie."

"Besides, it's more of a calling, really."

"Goddammit! I just don't think you should patrol until we figure out what this is about," Sam says, his voice as heated as his expression, face so red that Dean is a little concerned he might have a stroke. "This is Sioux Falls, not some den of iniquity. The police can do their jobs just fine without your help for a while."

"Not if someone is banking on that," Dean shoots back, agitated and unsettled and let's face it, a little bit pissed at being bossed around by his little brother. "It's obvious that someone with an agenda is in town, and that's all the more reason why I should be spending more time on the street, not less."

"If you're the target then you're just giving them even more opportunity to take a shot at you, Dean!"

"Calm down, son." Sam sits back, surprised and immediately chagrined, because Bobby still has that effect on both of them no matter how old they are now. "You're both right, but only one of you is thinking clinically, and I'm sorry to say it's not you for once, Sam."

Dean hopes his smug surprise doesn't show on his face. "Look, Ash finished the first full set of Panthera for me to wear, so I have that added protection."

"Is that really what you're calling it?" 

"Until we come up with better names than 'molted crab skin' or 'soft shell taco' then yes, it's Panthera."

"I also suggested Trionychidae but you didn't want to name it something you couldn't spell."

"It was kind of a deep cut even for me, Bobby."

"Come on Red, I thought you were with me on that."

"Stop, all of you just stop." Sam pinches his nose as though he's trying to stave off a migraine, and Dean takes pity.

"Listen. Ash can come help Bobby out in the garage, and I'll sleep down in the Cave when I'm supposed to be working here. Anyone who's watching will think that I'm coming to clock in as always. I'll get plenty of rest, and then I can patrol. I'll even wear the tracker _and_ the earpiece if it makes you feel better."

"You hate the tracker," Sam says sullenly, and Dean sighs.

"I do, because normally it's unnecessary, but considering the situation your paranoia is probably warranted a bit."

"A bit." Sam shakes his head, rubbing at his eyes. "A _bit._ "

"Did you break him? He's turned into an echo."

"Weird, I always pegged him for Narcissus."

"I get that. Why else would he keep that hair?"

"I can hear all of you whispering, you know!" 

"Oh good, Sam.exe is back online." 

"I can't believe this is my life," Sam mutters to himself on screen. "Okay. Fine. There haven't been any incidents for weeks, but that probably means one is due soon."

"That tracks," Charlie agrees, chewing on her pen as she looks at some numbers scribbled on a notepad. "It's not on an exact timeline, but that's what the average would suggest."

"Okay. Let's give it two weeks of full time patrol, then we'll reassess."

"But..."

"Two weeks! Got it, thanks Sam!" Charlie hits a button and Sam disappears from the screen. She glares at Dean. "What were you gonna do, piss him off even more and get him to refuse again? Take what's offered, renegotiate later. You've been dealing with your brother three times longer than I have, how have you not learned how to handle him yet?"

"Yeah, you're right, it's just..."

"Shut up. Let's eat the rest of this pizza and work on a battle plan."

Dean nods as both of them go over to the table against the wall to finish lunch, but his eyes catch the picture Charlie left on screen from the apartment fire, and it gives him a momentary chill.

_Come out, come out, wherever you are._

"If we don’t find something soon, Sam's going to use it as a reason to keep me off the streets permanently."

"He's not going to do that, Dean, don't be stupid." Charlie's voice in his ear is thready but clear.

"This has him spooked, Charlie. He makes me call him every morning before I go to sleep to reassure him that nothing happened, and recently he's suggested that I don't need to be doing this at all." He kicks at some loose stone that's crumbling off the roof edge, leaning on the parapet and watching the busy downtown street below. "He can stop funding this at any time. It's his prerogative. _Don't_ sing."

"You never let me do anything fun." He can hear her pouting all the way across town. "What would you do, if he made you quit?" 

"I don't know."

"You'd keep doing it anyway, wouldn't you?"

"Am I that transparent?"

"Your desire to be useful is. I bet even without the resources and the awesome support team, you'd still find a way. You were doing it under his nose for a while, before we came along."

"It wouldn't be as much fun without you guys, though. Ash makes some cool toys."

"Thanks, your appreciation of my contribution is so touching."

He laughs a bit, then something in the street below catches his eye.

Not something.

Some _one_.

He's walking down the street with his hands in the pockets of a tan trench coat, but Dean doesn't need supersight to recognize that gait, nor the tousled head of dark hair. Dean's been thinking about what Eileen said to him that night that he brought Sam home from the bar, mulling it over and trying to decide the best time to show up at Sam's office, make an attempt to at least put them back on speaking terms. It's just that every time he thinks about telling Cas that he doesn't want anything more than friendship his mouth goes dry. It feels like the worst kind of lie, because in the year or so since they first met, Cas is the only person Dean's been able to imagine in the starring role of his domestic fantasy. One where he wakes up in the light of a late morning with another body, sleep-warm and soft beside him in the bed, before getting up to make breakfast and coffee for more than just one. A life where he has someone to come home to every day, who'll greet him with a kiss and ask him how things went, curl up with him on the couch as they talk about the most mundane things. 

But Dean's life isn't a bokeh photograph in soft tones and warm hues, which is perfectly illustrated by the fact that he's now standing on a rooftop in the early evening, staring at his crush four stories below with eyesight so keen that he can see the pupils within those deep blue eyes. What would Cas think of him if he knew? Would he be horrified? Repulsed? Or understanding, but in a way that made him keep his distance?

Dean sighs. 

"What was that for?" Charlie asks, and he realizes he'd completely forgotten she was there. 

"I see someone I know, that's all."

"Is it your sexy sidekick friend?"

"He's not my sidekick. He's not even my friend."

"He's the closest you have to both, if you think about it. I notice you didn’t argue against sexy, though."

"Oh, I don't have any other friends now? You and Ash are what, just coworkers?"

"I thought we were family." She sounds so small when she says it, and it hurts him to remember that she once sounded like that all the time, when she was a recently made orphan in foster care, newly arrived at a school full of total strangers. 

"We are, you're right. I'm sorry."

"Besides, even Ash and I aren't around you when you're all, you know, wolfing out."

"You're still reading Sterek fanfic, aren't you?"

"The werewolf trope is prevalent in many different fandoms, I'll have you know."

"Uh-huh." He watches as Cas turns into an alleyway between two bars, and without thinking he starts following him, taking a parallel path along the rooftops. "Besides, I think Darkwing up and left town." 

_It's probably for the best_ , he thinks, _because if I’d known that was the last time I might have done something really stupid_. Every successive encounter since their first has only honed the sharp edges of Dean’s attraction, enhanced by the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to be careful with him. He’d planted that seed in Dean's brain the first night they met, and it's grown into a twisted kink tree of every fantasy he's never allowed himself to entertain with a civilian, even one he wants to cuddle with. He wonders what it would be like, to be manhandled by someone with the strength to...

"Earth to Daredemon."

"Sorry, sorry." Fuck, he’s still not used to Charlie’s constant presence in his ear, too used letting his mind wander on long nights. “I got distracted.”

Darkwing's absence stings in a way he didn't expect, and he wonders if he’s been using that as a way to stop thinking about how he hurt the feelings of someone else, someone that he’s apparently low-key stalking at the moment. Someone who could still be part of his life in a limited capacity if he could just bring himself to accept that.

Cas looks to be deep in thought as he leaves the alley and emerges onto a quieter street, hands shoved in the pockets of his trench coat as he ambles along, seemingly without direction. 

“Charlie, what’s northeast of my current location?” The tall buildings are thinning out, and Dean’s going to have to move down to street level if he wants to keep an eye on Cas. It’s none of his business what Cas does with his evenings, of course, but Dean’s a little worried that he’s not paying attention to his surroundings.

“Not much. Two blocks up is that old mattress factory, still abandoned, and on the other side is some kind of warehouse that’s been under construction the last couple of months. Not sure what they do there, exactly, but it probably doesn’t depend on location, location, location, practically nobody goes into that part of town.”

“Right.”

“Got an inkling?”

“Something like that. Listen, there's something I need to do. I have to go offline for a while."

"What? You're in the middle of patrol!"

"I'm still in the beginning, technically."

"Don't argue semantics with me, what the hell are you doing?"

"I just, look, I need to pretend I’m a civilian for a bit. Got to get a look at something and can’t risk giving myself away. I’ll be back."

"I don't under..." He grimaces a bit as he yanks out the earpiece, pressing the button that turns it off before he tucks it into one of the hidden pockets of his costume. He's never been more grateful to have a disguise that can pass pretty easily for streetwear. All black isn't just for the goth crowd anymore, and his cargo pants and combat boots are passable even in daylight. His shirt isn't skintight, but it's certainly not loose enough to hide the dual holsters at his lower back, so he quickly stashes them in a dark corner of the roof to retrieve later. The loose cowl just looks like a hoodie when it's down, and once his mask gets tucked into another hidden pocket he rubs his face to try and remove the indentations it normally leaves on his skin.

Satisfied, he checks on Cas’s position before making his way down to street level as quietly as possible, blending into the shadow of the night streets as he follows him for another block. Cas finally comes to a stop on the corner past the old factory, his gaze on the new construction on the next block before he turns his head side to side, as if trying to figure out where he is. Dean comes to a halt, wondering if he should approach, pretend that he just happened to be in this completely deserted section of town. His palms are sweating and he realizes he still has the fingerless gloves on, so he yanks them off, shoving them into an outside pocket of his cargo pants before he runs his hands through his hair.

"Fuck, Dean, get your shit together," he mutters under this breath, and at that moment, as if he heard, Cas turns to look over his shoulder. Those eyes go wide as saucers, and pure panic crosses his face as Dean raises a hand and gives the tiniest wave. Cas breaks eye contact and turns his face away, the line of his shoulders tense and unwelcoming.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, taking one last deep breath to steel his resolve, then looks up...only to see that Cas is briskly walking away from him. 

"Cas! Wait, please!" He freezes in place, turning slowly as Dean jogs up to him, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. "I'm sorry to run after you like this, but I really need to talk..."

"Get away from me, Dean." The words are harsh but the tone isn't, and it gives Dean pause. It's a plea, not a command, and he frowns in confusion as Cas's eyes dart behind him, then up, then back to his face. "You shouldn't have followed me."

"Look, I saw you out walking by yourself and I just felt like, like I couldn't let another day go by like this, with us avoiding each other."

"Dean."

"It's my fault. I know it is..."

"What?"

"...and I know you don't want to talk to me and I deserve that..."

"No, that's not why I..."

"...but I would do anything to go back to that night and do everything differently."

" _Dean_. You didn't do anything wrong."

"What are you talking about? Things didn't end the way you were hoping, obviously, how is that not wrong?"

"You..."

"I just, I need to tell you how sorry I am, because I really was having a great time but..."

"Dean!" Cas takes him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. "I don't know why you're apologizing to me, but I can’t do this."

"Cas, please. I can't keep beating myself up and you deserve better."

"Is that what you think? That you're not good enough?" Cas looks stricken, and his hands drop to his sides. "Oh, Dean, you shouldn't feel like that. It's not your fault."

"I'm pretty sure ditching out of the bathroom window of the bar was a deliberate act for which I am solely to blame."

"You..." Those blue eyes go wide, but before Dean can say anything else Cas shoves past him. Dean turns but Cas moves in front of him like a shield, holding his arms out as a dark figure stands silently before them. 

Dean inhales sharply. _Darkwing is here_ is his first, inexplicable thought, but it only takes a moment for him to dismiss it. He doesn't know who this is but their intent is definitely ominous, and he's suddenly struck by the thought that he's going to have to reveal himself as a super to protect Cas. That, more than anything else, is going to destroy whatever they could have been to each other. 

He opens his mouth, a challenge on the tip of his tongue...

"Let the civilian go," Cas says, his tone forceful and angry, and it's kind of fucking hot if not for the fact that Cas is going to get his ass kicked by this dude and...

Hold up.

"What did you call me?" he whispers in Cas's ear. 

"But he's so _pretty_ ," the stranger drawls with a smirk.

"Hey!"

The man laughs lowly at Dean’s indignation, and Cas visibly tenses in front of him. 

"Dean," Cas hisses. "Run. Now."

"Hell, no, Cas, I'm not leaving you alone with some asshole mugger, are you crazy?" 

The man takes two steps in their direction but Cas doesn't even flinch, and Dean worries for a moment that he's going to do something stupid if this fucker pulls a knife or worse, a gun. He needs to maneuver in front somehow, put himself and his hidden body armor between Cas and danger, but his attempt to shove Cas's arm out of the way fails miserably. It's like trying to push against a steel beam.

"What the actual..."

"Dean," Cas says in a low growl, and fuck it all that is _very_ hot and he's never heard a sound like that come out of Cas before, it's more like... "You need to get away from me."

"Oh, your little friend isn't going anywhere," says the shadowed man, and before Dean can assert himself he sees a flash of silver as something brushes against him so forcefully that he falls right to the pavement, ass and elbows on the ground as he stares up in utter disbelief.

Cas, mild-mannered Midwestern attorney, is facing the stranger in a classic battle stance. In each hand he holds a short sword unlike anything Dean has ever seen before, but that's not what's drawing his focus. 

No, that would be the enormous pair of black, feathered wings that have appeared on his back out of thin air, wings that he would recognize anywhere.

"Come now. Is that any way to greet me, brother?" 

"Your _what_?" Dean says, but he catches a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye and then...knows nothing at all.

There's a nagging pain that enters into his consciousness slowly, increasing in intensity as he becomes more and more aware. It's localized at the back of his head, a dull ache that blooms into a throbbing fist of pain, knocking against the inside of his skull. 

_Let your guard down again. Bobby's gonna kick your ass when he finds out._

He squints his eyes against the pain, but suddenly that takes a back seat as the realization that he's bound to a chair runs up to cut to the front of the line. He moves the tips of his fingers slightly, just enough to run the pads of them over the coils that are binding his wrists to the arms of a chair. Nylon, quarter inch, feels like a soft braid...

_Jesus Christ, did these assholes really tie me up with a hank of rope they bought at Home Depot for twenty bucks?_

If they did, it means they don't know who he is. _What_ he is, and have grossly underestimated the stack of the deck here. 

He remains completely still, but all of his enhanced senses flare into red alert mode, cast themselves wide like a net flung out across the surface of the sea. He concentrates on two for now, keeping his eyes tightly shut. Far away, but still within the confines of this building, he hears the susurration of whispers engrossed in conversation, the tone of it even and measured though he can't make out the words. He can hear movement in a few other places, can discern that they're on the same floor, just in different rooms or hallways in between. That far out he can smell concrete and plaster, the normal scents of new construction, and mingled into it the well-known notes of gun oil and ammunition. A lot of ammunition.

He's mulling it over, letting his head continue to hang against his chest as he pulls in the net, and notices that he's not alone. Someone else is in the room with him just a few feet away, their breathing even and heart beating dully inside their chest, the scent that lingers on their clothes familiar and warm.

_Cas. Except...he's not just Cas, is he?_

He opens his eyes, blinking rapidly in the fluorescent overhead light that makes him hyper aware again of the knot forming on the back of his head.

"Fuuuuuuuuuck," he says under his breath, rolling his neck from side to side, clenching his teeth against the renewed pain. "That's gonna leave a mark." 

"Dean? How badly are you hurt? Do you feel nauseous? Is your vision blurry, or your ears ringing?" 

"Well my head is spinning now because you're asking too many questions, maybe let me answer one before you move on to the next?" He turns his head to where Cas is restrained in some kind of metallic apparatus, arms and legs splayed like a Da Vinci painting, face a mask of concern. "That's me. Not bad. A bit. No. No. Do I get to ask a question now?"

"You just did." Dean levels a glare at him, and Cas sighs and hangs his head. "Sorry. Yes. I'm sure you...you probably have a lot of them."

"You think?" Cas is still in his suit from the office and the tan trench coat he'd been wearing when they were jumped, and it seems incongruous now with what Dean actually knows. He lets himself feel a brief flare of bright anger at the betrayal, but only just, because he’s not a hypocrite, for Christ’s sake. He needs to confess, too, but for the moment it's an advantage he doesn't want to give away, not until he knows more about the situation at hand. Whoever captured them called Cas 'brother', and if there's anything Dean understands all too well it's how family can be a curse as well as succor. Until he knows exactly what's happening here, he'll have to keep his own identity secret.

"So, wings, huh?" He can see Cas tense up, though he doesn't struggle against the restraints, as though he knows it's useless. Dean files that tidbit of information away for now. "What do these people want with you, experimentation?" 

"I can’t believe you didn’t take the opportunity to make an anal probe joke.”

Dean just looks at him and Cas sighs, his entire body sagging in the cuffs around his wrists and ankles, the picture of abject defeat.

“I'm so sorry, Dean. It's my fault that you're here."

"Still doesn't answer either of my questions."

"Right, right. You deserve to know. I'm just worried that you'll hate me." He takes a deep breath, turning his face away. "Although I suppose after what happened on our date you hate me already."

"Cas, that's..."

"I'm a _super_ , Dean. I'm one of those freaks with enhanced abilities that you see in all the tabloid magazines." 

"People can't help how they're born, Cas, it doesn't make them freaks. I thought you knew me better than to lump me into the same category as the judgemental assholes who buy those things, Christ."

"I don't, of course I don't, I'm sorry. I'm...projecting."

"Well don't project your self-loathing in my direction unless you can focus it like a laser beam onto something useful, like these ropes." He grins at Cas, who looks confounded.

"How can you joke around at a time like this? Aren't you scared?"

"Well, I am a little bit nervous about being sex-trafficked, but when you're this good-looking it's a low-level terror that's always running in the background and you kind of learn to tune it out so you can function. Plus I think I've aged out of the prime demographic for that, anyway. It was a much greater concern until maybe five years ago. I'm not nearly pretty enough now."

"That is absolutely untrue."

"Are you telling me I _should_ be worried or that you think I'm pretty?"

"I always have, is that really important right now?"

"Well, it seems to me like we're stuck here for a while, so I might as well ask about the things I really want to know."

"And you want to know how attractive I think you are?"

"Since you don't seem keen to answer the two questions I've already asked you I thought I'd give you something easy."

"I answered the first one!"

"But not the second, which means you either don't know or you don't want me to. Elaborate on the first answer then, super how? I'm guessing 'no' on laser beam eyes, so what actually makes you special besides the giant wingspan that apparently collapses into a convenient travel size?"

"You were never meant to see those." 

"And a couple of weird looking daggers, too, which I assume were in the same bag as the wings."

"I...never thought about it that way but yes, I suppose that's true. They, um, fold into an ethereal plane unless I bring them into this one."

"What else are you hiding in there? Is there an outfit that goes with these accessories? Is it leather?"

"Leather has zero breathability, no one in their right mind wears it for functional purposes."

"If you are incapable of functional sex then I don't really see a future for us, because it goes against everything I had planned."

Cas actually blushes, and Dean probably shouldn't find that so cute given their current status.

"If what happened at Benny's that night didn't already mess that up for me, I'm pretty sure this situation has," Cas says glumly. "I'm so sorry, Dean. I never wanted to hurt you, I promise. I can't imagine how you must have felt when you came back to the table and I was gone."

_This_ , Dean thinks, _is the perfect moment for the sound of a record scratch_.

"Cas, what..."

"I should have left as soon as you realized that Sam had set us up, that he meant for it to be a date. Honestly, I should have never spent all those months flirting with you before that, but I kept telling myself it was innocent, that as long as it never went anywhere that nobody would get hurt. It never occurred to me that I was so transparent, that Sam could see so clearly what I wanted, or that he would try to make it happen for me. And once we were there I didn't want to leave, and I started thinking that maybe it was possible, maybe there was a way for me to have that, have you." He takes a shuddering breath. "And then the building across the street blew up, and I knew it was a sign that I was kidding myself, thinking I could have some kind of regular life. So I left you there and went to help, and I've hated myself for it every day since."

"You left."

"I'm so sorry, Dean."

He opens his mouth, prepared to spill everything, when a door behind them opens. He's been so focused on talking to Cas that he stopped paying attention to the sound of others in the building, and as a result he didn't notice anyone coming. Dean curses himself for once again letting his guard down, knowing that Bobby is going to give him a repeat performance of being hit with a metal chair until he finally learns this lesson.

"Well, well. It looks like your little friend is finally awake."

"Bartholomew, let him go. He doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Oh, I don't know about that, brother. Given the little scene I witnessed in the alley it seems he might have _something_ to do with it, if only as leverage."

"Hey, I'm nobody's lever, asshole."

"Not only is he human, he's crass as well. How _charming_."

"Let me out of these ropes and I'll show you exactly how charming I am."

"Is he as much of a tiger in the sack? If so I think I understand the basis of his appeal."

"What will it take for this to end?" Cas sounds defeated and sad, but Dean can't get him to make eye contact as the owner of the voice comes into view on his right, inches away from his bound hand but eyes completely focused on Castiel and the apparatus that's restraining him like something out of a science fiction movie. "If I come back with you and agree to...the arrangement," and Dean doesn't miss the hesitant pause and the quick glance in his direction, "will you let him go?"

"Oh, James." 

"That's not my name anymore."

Bartholomew grins from ear to ear, actually reaching up to pinch Cas's cheek, and it takes all of Dean's restraint not to give himself away. "You no longer have a choice about whether you come back with me or not, _James_. Just look at yourself, brother."

"Don't call me that."

"You always think that ignoring the truth will somehow make it less so, and it's never worked. You spent all your life denying your own power, praying it would make you normal. You thought turning your back on our clan’s legacy and trying to live as a regular human would make you anything but what you are, and you still couldn't help yourself, could you? Went venturing out to play the hero, even found a little sidekick to run around with some comic book cliche."

Dean clenches his toes inside his shoes, thinking about how much he'd like to kick Barty in his smug face, but knowing this isn't the right time.

"You can take me with you by force, but you can't make me do anything else that you want."

"Oh, I think you'll find that I can." He turns to Dean, leaning down until their faces are inches apart, but not close enough for a good headbutt. "Your little friend here is going to make a wonderful pet, I think. We'll make sure that he's safe and well fed and very much alive as long as you...do everything I say." He straightens up, and Dean wishes -- not for the first time, admittedly -- that he had laser eyesight, because he'd be burning a hole in the back of this asshole's skull right about now. "Maybe I'll even let you play with him from time to time, if you're a very good boy."

"Bartholomew, you can't..."

"If you fight me, brother, he won't leave this place alive, and I'll take you home by force regardless. His intended cage will simply become yours until you find yourself in a more agreeable state of mind." He claps his hands together like he's just sold them a car. "We leave in the morning, so why don't you two talk it over and then get some rest, okay? Perfect."


	4. Chapter 4

Cas says nothing for some time after Bartholomew leaves, his head hanging, not even glancing in Dean's direction. Dean tries to wait patiently, he really does, but the only reason he doesn't speak right away is because he's got dozens of questions and can't decide which of them is more important.

"Brother?" It's not the thing he wants to ask the most, simply the shortest.

Cas gives a full body sigh, but otherwise doesn't move. "You can't choose your family."

"Bullshit." Cas does look up then, confusion on his face as he meets Dean's gaze. "You can't choose your blood, that's true, but you sure as hell can choose who to surround yourself with and call your family." 

Cas gives a derisive snort. "How would you know? You and Sam are close, and it seems like you always have been."

"I only keep him around because he's the only blood relative I have that's not a 'live in the jungle and preach free love until it's time to drink the Kool-Aid' asshat."

"It was Flavor Aid."

"So what? Kool-Aid sounds better. Don't get me off the subject."

"Sorry, sorry. You grew up in a cult, please continue."

"No, but I could have, and it sounds like you _definitely_ did. Care to explain that whole exchange to me, considering it looks like I'm definitely being sex-trafficked now?"

"Dean, I wouldn't..." He trails off at the look he gets. "My clan all have enhancements, although they like to refer to themselves as 'genetically superior' to regular people."

"Wow, you actually did air quotes in the restraints, well done, you."

"Thank you. I felt it was important to convey my utter derision of the term."

"Noted. Go on."

"My relatives, such as they are, are one of those groups who think that supers should only fraternize with those of their own kind. They've been selectively breeding with other like-minded clans for generations now, trying to keep the genetic material pure and under their control."

"Yeah, I've...heard some things like that. Pureblood mania right out of _Harry Potter_ , with arranged marriages like they’re some kind of royalty.” 

“It's archaic, is what it is. It's like none of them know that science exists."

Dean can't help but chuckle at that. He wishes Charlie had heard it. 

_Wait a minute_.

"Hey, uh, Cas..." he says tentatively, but it's like a floodgate has been opened.

"I grew up thinking that I was being trained for a greater good, you know? That I would grow up and use my powers to make a difference. I was so naive. It took a long time for me to realize that my relatives only use their power for profit, and their connections to find marriage prospects whose genetic material would make for interesting offspring. _Offspring_. As if we're stock they want to breed for a champion racehorse! Marriage to a person I don't know and have never met, not to mention they seem to be overlooking the extremely relevant fact that I am _gay_."

"Well, probably not, considering your brother offered to let you keep me as an incentive." Cas glares at him, and Dean shrugs. "I'm just saying, I don't think they've overlooked it, they just don't care."

"Right! Exactly! They don't _care_. Isn't family supposed to care about you? Instead I had a whole childhood of training and tests and reprimands, no one interested in whether or not this was even the kind of life I even wanted for myself."

"Yeah, I know exactly how that feels, actually."

"They..." He trails off. "What do you mean, you know exactly how that feels?"

Dean regards him for a moment, then flexes the muscles in his forearms and calves. The ropes burst open as if they'd exploded, falling to the floor in a confused jumble of frayed ends, and Dean stands up.

"You see, the problem with feeling superior all the time," he says as he strolls casually over to a control panel near the Da Vinci apparatus, "is that it makes you stupid. So when you assume that someone is just a lowly human, you don't actually check." He peers at the controls but of course none of them are labelled. He decides that the biggest button is the most promising, and presses it firmly before he can second guess himself. There's the sound of pressurized air being released, then the restraints at Cas's arms and legs retract and he drops gracefully into a crouch on the floor before standing to face Dean, shock and surprise evident on his face. 

"Dean, you..."

"Damn, this would be a perfect time for a catchphrase. Why can’t I ever think of one?" 

The gasp is audible even without super hearing. 

" _Daredemon_?"

"Guess we have a lot to talk about, huh?"

"But..."

"First, you should know that I've been avoiding you the last couple of months because I ditched you on our date. I jumped out the bathroom window to run towards a burning building. Couldn't face you after that. I mean, what would I _say_?"

"But I thought..."

"Yeah, I know. We can start with mutual apologies before we talk, but we should probably focus on getting out of here first."

"Dean, wait." Cas closes the distance between them very quickly, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. "You should get out of here, go to ground somewhere for a while. I'll go back with Bartholomew."

"What? No fucking way, Cas."

"I have to. If I don't they'll _hurt_ you. It's happened before." The crestfallen look on his face gives Dean pause, and he reaches up to cover Cas's hand with his own. "I had a boyfriend in college, a civilian. They..." He swallows, turning his head away, blinking rapidly. "He was killed in an accident, car driven off the road and down a steep embankment. They said he was drunk, but...Inias didn’t drink, and he didn’t even own a car.” He takes a shuddering breath. “I can't prove it, but I know it in my gut. I'm sure they had him killed.”

“Cas, I’m sorry.”

“That's when I ran, why I’ve been running for years but...I got attached to this place, and now I’m terrified the same thing will happen to you. Giving myself up is the only way to keep you safe."

"Bartholomew's arrogance is rubbing off on you if you think I'm some damsel in distress that needs saving, or that I'll let anyone I love sacrifice themselves for some bullshit sense of nobility." Cas blinks several times, taking a step back. "I know exactly the kind of people your clan are, and I'm not letting you go back to them. You can get free of them, especially when you no longer have to stand alone. That's all it takes, Cas. Someone to be on your side."

"How do you know?"

Dean rummages in the hidden compartments on his shirt, searching. Where the fuck did he put that thing?

"My mother was a Campbell. I'm sure you know what that means. She was in the same boat as you once, and she wasn't having it, not one bit. My dad and his friends helped her get away, craft a new life for herself, hidden so well they never found her again." He finds the earpiece, pulling it out and holding it up for Cas to admire. "She couldn't just sit around and live the civilian life, either, and eventually she lost it in factory fire.”

“How old were you?”

“Four. Sam wasn’t even a year old.”

“That’s awful. I’m sorry.”

Dean just shrugs. He barely even remembers his mother, and thinking of her only makes him feel this vague sense of having misplaced something, but not knowing exactly what. 

“Guess the two of you had something in common. You could have just stayed at home binging Netflix and they never would have found you. Instead you came out of hiding to help me beat up drunks and rescue kittens.” 

"I, well, um." Cas fidgets, and Dean depresses the little button that turns the earpiece back on. "I hadn't planned on it until I saw you."

"Saw me?" Cas nods, and Dean moves closer. "What, you saw me on patrol and wanted to get to know me?" 

"It was just professional curiosity. At first."

"Uh-huh."

"I didn't know any supers outside of the clans that I grew up with, and I thought, well.” He starts fidgeting, and Dean is really tempted to kiss him. “I just wanted to see what, um, what you were like."

"So what, you pulled a costume out of storage?"

"No, I'd never had a costume before. I had to make it, and it took weeks for me to get it looking presentable." 

"You spent weeks on your costume and the best name you could come up with was Darkwing?"

"Well, no. It didn’t occur to me that I’d need a moniker, so when you asked me I panicked. That's something my brothers called me when my powers started to manifest." He frowns. "I actually used to think it was a compliment, until you told me about the cartoon. Now I know they were just being assholes.”

"Hey, Darkwing Duck is great!"

"It sends completely the wrong message!"

"And what message were you trying to get across?"

"Probably that he wanted to fuck your stupid brains out," comes a shrieking voice through the earpiece, and the two of them break apart. Dean hadn't even realized how close they'd moved to each other, and he’d completely forgotten about the comm in his hand. "Daredemon, you better tell me what's happening this goddamn second or I am bringing the big guns down on your location."

"Okay, stop screeching, I'm putting the earpiece back in." Cas looks at him quizzically as he does so. "Where does the tracker say I am?"

"Looks like you’re in that warehouse I mentioned earlier, the one that’s been under construction for the last two months."

"Did you find anything out about the location?"

"Of course. Something is definitely fishy. Owner is a subsidiary of a shell company owned by an investment group that's tied to a whole web of anonymous investors. You’ve only been out of contact for ninety minutes, so I haven't run all those down yet -- but whatever is going on there smells. Why are you in there?"

"Got brought by force." She makes an exasperated sound. "Save the lecture for later. Darkwing is with me and there are hostiles in the building." 

If the company he’s keeping gives her any pause she doesn't show it. "Do these hostiles have an identity?"

"It's one of the clans, I'm not sure which one. Not mine, another one." He raises his eyes at Cas in silent question. 

"Adler," he says lowly, and Dean shudders.

"Charlie, did you get that?"

"Fuck yeah, I got it. Christ, they’re a nasty bunch, even worse than yours. They're Boston-based, what the hell are they doing out here?"

Dean looks at Cas, who bites his lip, then nods. 

"Darkwing's a rogue, just like Mom. They came for him."

"Then you both need to get out of there and get to the Cave."

"Charlie, do you think..."

"Don't worry. Darkwing will be under our protection. I know Ash and Bobby will both agree. Sam may resist at first because he worries, but he'll come around, especially if that's who I think it is."

"Can't get anything by you, can I?"

"No, but do keep trying, I find it very amusing."

"We're going to evacuate now, so I'm not going to talk directly to you, but keep listening in."

"Like you could stop me. I'm going to mute this side though, so you don't get distracted by Sam's screaming when he gets here. Bobby and Ash are en route, too.”

"Good call." 

"Be safe." There's a minute shift in the sound, from a comforting crackle to dead air.

"Okay." He turns to Cas. "Do you have all your stuff? Make sure, because we're not coming back here if you forgot anything."

Cas tilts his head. "It seems so obvious that you're the same person now. Why couldn't I see it before?"

"Because the brain's facial recognition software is shit,even with supersight. Sam had a beard for a while, and when he shaved it I literally couldn't recognize him in a crowd for weeks. Amused the hell out of him when we’d meet at the bar. He kept texting me ‘warmer’ or ‘colder’, that little shit.”

They creep to the door leading out of the room, both of them instinctively stopping to listen. Dean can still hear four people moving through the hallways -- guards on patrol, probably -- but otherwise things seem quiet. 

"Do you think your brother has left the building?"

"I’m not certain, but there are definitely sleeping quarters in here. I can hear three people breathing shallowly in a room to the east. One of them has a deviated septum."

Dean grins. "I always knew we were well matched. Similar senses, similar fighting style. I hope you're stealthy, too, because I left my weapons stashed somewhere when I had to come off the roof to keep following you.”

“I knew I was being followed, but I didn’t realize it was you.” Cas flicks his wrists, and suddenly those blades like three dimensional daggers appear in his hands. "You should let me go first, then."

"Fuck, that's hot. I only got a glimpse of them that first night, always wanted to ask what they were."

"Only thing my father ever did right was have these crafted especially for my use. I’m exceptionally good with a blade.”

“There’s definitely a joke there, but I’ll have to think of it later.” Dean tries the door handle, and it opens at his touch. "Smug bastard didn't even bother to lock us in." He nods at Cas before pulling the door wide, then follows him out into the dark hallway, dropping his voice to a whisper so low only they can hear. "So does Barty have the same powers as you?"

"No. I'm the most gifted in the clan, which is why they're so keen for me to, you know. Bake." 

“Bake?”

“Put buns in the oven?”

“Oh my god, please do not make me laugh, we are in _stealth mode_.”

They move quickly and silently to the end of the hall, which branches off in different directions. Cas turns left, which is exactly what Dean would have done, and he smiles to himself.

"If you told me he had any gifts other than being a raging douchebag I'd be shocked." The hallways bends left, then another comes up on the right, but Cas passes that to keep going straight. 

"Well, that is his _strongest_ gift, surely, but he can also teleport short distances, even phase through walls."

"No shit?"

"No shit. There's a very hefty rate for his extraction services, so he generally attracts those with ill intent. He would be very useful in a hostage situation, but like I said, they don’t work for free. Local law enforcement can't afford him."

"What an asshole."

"Agreed. They're all just supers with singular gifts for sale to the highest bidder. Bartholomew is actually a weakling, physically, which is why he has so many hired goons."

"And I let one of them sneak up on me in the alley and knock me out. What an amateur move."

"To be fair, he brained you with a tire iron.”

They come to another door, also unlocked, and both of them pause to listen for movement. 

"This is the last room between us and outside," Dean murmurs. "Maybe a warehouse or a loading dock."

Cas nods and pushes the door open, entering the space beyond in a crouch with Dean close behind. 

"Skylights overhead. I could fly us out. Do you have your cool sand tool on you?" 

“I am not letting myself be airlifted out of this warehouse by someone who just let the words ‘cool tool’ come out of their mouth, you know how I feel about falling. Look over there.”

There's a regular reinforced steel door at the far end, and the space between it and them is a maze of crates. They move silently through the stacks, but something catches Dean's eye and he reaches out to put a hand on Cas's back.

"Hey, why would a clan of supers need to stockpile ammunition?"

"What?" 

Dean points to the stenciling on the crate next to them. _Live Ammo, Cal. 50, Handle with Care._ They scan the other surrounding crates, all of them with similar markings denoting different ammunitions, grenades, weapons, oh shit is that a grenade launcher?

"I don't...why on earth would they need..."

Suddenly the bank of fluorescent lights high overhead come on with a buzz, and the entire space turns bright as day. They instinctively drop into a crouched position, hiding within the stacks of weapons, but they know they’ve been seen when they hear the sound of slow clapping. 

"Now, now, now, little brother. How did you escape? Uncle Zachariah designed that apparatus with your _particular_ gifts in mind, and there's no way you could have gotten out unless someone came to release you."

“Or unless you left a perfectly capable person in the room who could release him.” Dean stands back up as he says it, watching as Bartholemew approaches from the wall he must have phased through. 

“Interesting. How did you manage to free yourself?"

"I'm extremely flexible." Bartholemew narrows his eyes, assessing Dean, who just crosses his arms and winks. 

"What is all this?" Cas growls at his brother, and Dean is once again forced to remind himself that this is not the time and place to be aroused. "What possible use could you have for all these weapons?"

"To make money, of course. Do you think our clan subsists only on what regular humans can pay us for our services? It's far more lucrative to sell them the means to feel like supers themselves, because that's what they all crave, deep down." He flips open the lid of a nearby crate stenciled _Hand Fragmentation F1_ , and pulls out a single grenade, tossing it casually from hand to hand. "They all want to be the biggest and the baddest, and they'll pay any price to achieve it, even for such a small thing."

"But why are they _here_ , in this warehouse in the middle of the country?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He laughs, holding his arms wide. "Once I narrowed down your location, I realized how much potential there was in establishing this as the base of this little operation, for precisely the reason you chose it. It’s so far from any prying eyes." He brings his arms down, face somber and gaze dark as it lands on Dean. "Now. Why don't you put the blades away and let me escort you and your friend back to your little room until it's time for us to go."

“I can’t believe Zachariah would approve of this,” Cas says darkly. “He detests the human race, he would never stoop to giving them weapons, no matter the price.”

“What Uncle Zach doesn’t know will make me very rich, and after I’ve brought back the golden calf he’ll be far too focused on his marriage machinations to pay any attention to what I’m doing.”

“I’ll tell him everything.”

Bartholomew just smiles, and on him it’s unsettling and creepy in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that he’s casually palming a grenade. 

“I think you’re forgetting something.” His entire body goes transparent and disappears so quickly that even Dean nearly misses the transition. He senses the moment that Bartholomew rematerializes behind him, and in the split second before an arm comes around his neck in a chokehold he sends Cas a single, warning look and receives a minute nod in return. 

"I think you’ve forgotten how fragile humans are,” Bartholomew sneers beside his ear. “Although I admit this one seems more durable than, hm, what was his name? Ian? No, that’s not quite it.”

“Keep his name out of your mouth,” Cas growls. Dean stares at him for a beat, then raises his gaze to the ceiling and holds it before turning his eyes back to Cas, then glancing briefly down at his hands. He can see the instant Cas gets it, and he pushes back against Bartholomew. “Get your hands off me, asshole.”

“Be a good boy, now, or you’ll force my hand, and then things will get very ugly.” The grip around Dean’s neck tightens. “Imagine the chain reaction that would occur if I accidentally dropped this grenade? Very messy for all of us.” He holds the grenade right in front of Dean’s face for emphasis. “So, I think you and I are going to escort my brother back to his little room, and then you are going to put him back into his restraints, and he is going to comply. And then in return for his compliance and his silence, he will keep you very much alive.” Dean says something, but it’s muffled. “What was that?”

He throws his head back with all his strength, hearing the satisfying crunch of Bartholomew’s nose breaking as he stumbles backwards. Dean turns and grins, grenade pin dangling from his teeth as Cas throws his arms around him. 

"I _said_ , time to fly the coop." He spits the pin at Bartholomew’s feet and gives him the one-fingered salute.

“That’s a terrible catchphrase,” Cas says as he vaults them into the air. 

“We’ve got four seconds, you better fly your ass off.” He raises his hand and takes aim with the glass dissolving laser held firmly in his fist, and sand rains down on them after he hits it with the beam on the first try. 

Dean manages to glance down just in time to see the live grenade detonate in Bartholomew's hand before they’re out the skylight and into the open air, the promised chain reaction bursting into a hundred blooms of pure fire below them.

Dean doesn’t realize that he’s passed out until he comes to. He doesn’t know how far away they’ve gotten, but he can still hear the roar of the warehouse behind them, completely engulfed in flames with an occasional explosion going off for good measure.

“Don’t look down,” Cas grits through his teeth. “You’ll pass out again.”

“I did not _pass out_.” He shuts his eyes tightly though, just in case.

“You’re even heavier when you’re unconscious.”

“You can set us down any time now!” 

“That’s exactly what you said before you fainted.” Cas sounds tired, but it feels like they're finally descending, so Dean bites his tongue. 

He can’t bring himself to open his eyes until he feels the blessed brush of earth underneath the soles of his feet, and he stumbles a few feet when Cas finally lets him go. 

“We made it! We’re alive!”

He turns just in time to see Cas crumple as his wings disappear back into the ether, and Dean barely catches him before he hits the ground. 

“Hey, you’re okay, you’re okay.” His face is pale and beaded with sweat, and Dean cringes when he smells the copper tang of blood and his left hand comes away red. 

"Just need to...rest," Cas whispers, so lowly that it's hard even for Dean to hear, and blood trickles from one corner of his mouth.

"I got you." Dean lowers them both carefully to the ground, heedless of the blood seeping into his jacket as he keeps one arm around Cas's shoulders. "Fuck, Cas, listen, you gotta hang in there, okay? Charlie, can you hear me? Is the tracker still working, can you pinpoint our location?"

On the other end, nothing but ominous silence. The earpiece must have fried from the force of the explosion, and he realizes with a sense of dread that they’re all alone out here in the middle of a field, far from the road with emergency services occupied elsewhere.

“Cas, can you hear me?” The eyes slit open, looking around a bit before finally resting on his face. “Cas, I have to go get help. Try not to move, okay?”

He attempts to stand, but Cas manages to reach up and grab at Dean's jacket, clutching it tight in one fist. "Don't...don't go, Dean." 

"Shit." He pulls Cas closer to him, cradling his face. "Not like this, please. I just found you and I don't want to lose you." He blinks his eyes rapidly, trying to will away the threatening tears, but one escapes and falls onto Cas's cheek, leaving a trail through the soot on his face. 

"Dean," Cas whispers again, pulling at the lapel that's clenched in his fingers. "Have to...have to tell you..."

"I'm here." He brushes his lips over Cas's forehead before leaning in close. "I'm here, I'm listening."

"I, I have...Dean, I have..." He takes a deep breath, as though preparing himself for a great strain. He pulls Dean down so they're staring into one another's eyes. "Dean, I have...healing powers."

Dean blinks several times, confused. "You what?"

Cas grins, his smile even more blinding from a face covered in soot. "Healing powers. You know. Like Wolverine?"

"You asshole," Dean says, shoving Cas out of his lap, and he rolls away laughing before sitting up in the dirt. "I cannot believe I fell for that. Why didn't you tell me, you dick?"

"Sorry, sorry," Cas is rocking back and forth now, hands wrapped around his knees, laughing uncontrollably as his own tears streak down his face. "It's just, I couldn't resist, you looked so solemn and I thought 'well, I'll never have a chance to make _this_ joke again' and so..." 

"Well, I hope you've healed sufficiently enough for the ass beating I'm about to give you." 

"Gotta catch me first!"

He scrambles to his feet but Cas is quicker, wings appearing just enough to be visible, and he levitates a foot in the air as Dean approaches. 

"Oh no you don't!" He reaches out quick as a flash and snags Cas by the tie, pulling him down and reeling him in like a fish. 

“First thing we’re gonna do is get you fitted for your own special set of protective armor.” 

Cas just grins down at him, amused, and Dean can't help it anymore. He pulls him just close enough to kiss that stupid smile off his face. 

"Ew, could you not do that in company? I can hear you both sucking face, it's gross."

Dean pulls out the earpiece and flings it across the field.

"Daredemon, do you copy?"

"What's with the formality, Charlie?"

"I'm just trying to sound official!"

"Well, knock it off. This is a mom and pop operation and it always will be."

"Fine." He can distinctly hear her blowing the hair out of her face. 

"Everything still quiet?"

"Seems that way." It's been three months since the destruction of the warehouse downtown, and it didn't take long for federal authorities to swoop in and take over the investigation once evidence of heavy munitions had been found. It seems that Cas's clan are too busy trying to put out their own set of random fires now, and looks like they’ve forgotten all about bringing their wayward member back into the fold for the time being.

"That's good." A beeping noise interrupts, and as he turns toward the sound he feels a brush of movement behind him. 

"You better go check that out."

"Darkwing's on it." 

"Then go see if he needs help with something besides his branding."

"Roger that." 

He hangs up the phone, tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans as he sidles up behind Cas, wrapping his arms around his waist and nuzzling at his neck. Cas leans into him, tipping his head back against Dean's shoulder as he sighs. 

"Do you want garlic salt on your popcorn?" 

"That depends. Will you refuse to kiss me later like some kind of vampire?"

"Not if you promise to let me bite you."

Dean hums low in his throat. "I sincerely promise."

Three months they've had to lay low, and it looks like they'll have a couple more months of that yet before the feds wrap things up and leave the area for good. For now it's too hot for them to be out on regular patrol, calling 'needless attention to themselves' as Sam put it. Instead they've been using that time for Cas to get to know the team, learn the ropes, spar with him in the Cave. Dean is much better with his guns, but Cas wasn’t kidding about his affinity for bladed weapons. Even Ash has described it as it ‘erotic.’

"Hey, Cas," he says, watching him empty microwave popcorn into a large ceramic bowl, sprinkling it liberally with garlic salt. "Have you given any thought to a new name for yourself yet?"

"Charlie nagging about my brand again?"

"Yeah, but I was thinking." 

"Uh-oh." Cas turns in his arms, resting his hands on Dean's chest. "Sounds dangerous." He squints at Dean. "Wait, are you nervous? Why are you nervous?"

"Well, it's just, I was thinking that since you'll be here for the foreseeable future, maybe we could give you a name that plays off of mine? It'll make us look more like a couple. I mean team! Team, you know, like Batman and Robin, or Cloak and Dagger..."

"You're babbling, Dean."

"I know, I'm sorry. It's just, I don't want you to think I'm moving too fast."

"That depends." Cas leans in, biting lightly on his earlobe. "What's the name?"

"Well, I'm Daredemon."

"Yes, I'm perfectly aware."

"And I thought it would be cool if you were...Angelblade?"

"Hmm."

"You don't like it?"

"I do, but I think it will sound better if I'm _The_ Angelblade. Like Ant-Man and _the_ Wasp."

"Okay, yeah, I guess that's better. Do you accept?"

"Do you realize that you just superhero proposed to me?"

"Was that a no?"

"Definitely not a no."

Cas kisses him softly, and Dean presses him back against the counter to return it with more force before pulling away and pressing their foreheads together.

“I’ve got another surprise for you.” Cas just hums, running his hands up and down Dean’s back. “I asked Ash to work on something special just for us.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it’s just a prototype for now, but considering we’ve already broken three of them it seemed pertinent to try and…”

“Did you have Ash make us an unbreakable _bed_?”

“Well, he dropped a couple of cars on it out in the salvage yard and it held up pretty well, but I don’t exactly know if it’s unbreakable.”

“ _Yet_.”


End file.
